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A14 BUSINESS
Wednesday 26 June 2024
Car dealerships in North America revert to pens and paper after

cyberattacks on software provider

By W. GRANTHAM-PHILIPS closed that last week’s inci-
AP Business Writer dent at CDK had disrupted
NEW YORK (AP) — Car deal- their operations as well.
erships in North America Lithia said it activated cy-
are still wrestling with major ber incident response pro-
disruptions that started last cedures, which included
week with cyberattacks “severing business service
on a company whose soft- connections between the
ware is used widely in the company’s systems and
auto retail sales sector. CDK’s.” AutoNation said
CDK Global, a company it also took steps to pro-
that provides software for tect its systems and data,
thousands of auto dealers adding that all of its loca-
in the U.S. and Canada, tions remain open “albeit
was hit by back-to-back with lower productivity,” as
cyberattacks Wednesday. many are served manually
That led to an outage that or through alternative pro-
has continued to impact cesses.
operations. HOW CAN I PROTECT
For prospective car buy- MYSELF?With many details
ers, that’s meant delays of the cyberattacks still
at dealerships or vehicle unclear, customer privacy
orders written up by hand. is also at top of mind es-
There’s no immediate end pecially with little known
in sight, but CDK says it ex- about what information
pects the restoration pro- may have been compro-
cess to take “several days” mised this week.
to complete. If you’ve bought a car
On Monday, Group 1 Auto- Vehicles sit in a row outside a dealership, June 2, 2024, in Lone Tree, Colo. from a dealership that’s
motive Inc., a $4 billion au- Associated Press used CDK software, cyber-
tomotive retailer, said it is security security experts
using “alternative process- said in an update over the ware attack,” Cliff Stein- erships. stress that it’s important
es” to sell cars to its custom- weekend noting that the hauer, director of informa- “The people who’ve been to assume your data may
ers. Lithia Motors and Au- company had launched tion security and engage- around longer you know, have been breached. That
toNation, two other dealer- an investigation into the ment at the National Cy- guys who have maybe a could potentially include

ship chains, also disclosed “cyber incident” with third- bersecurity Alliance. “We little salt in their hair like me “pretty sensitive informa-
that they implemented party experts and notified see it time and time again we remember how to do tion,” Steinhauer noted, like
workarounds to keep their law enforcement. unfortunately, (particularly it before the computers,” your social security num-
operations going. “Based on the information in) the last couple of years. said John Crane of Hawk ber, employment history,
Here is what you need to we have at this time, we No industry and no organi- Auto Group, a Westmont, income and current or for-
know. anticipate that the pro- zation or software compa- Illinois-based dealership mer addresses.
What is CDK Global?CDK cess will take several days ny is immune.” operator that uses CDK. Those impacted should
Global is a major player to complete, and in the Are impacted dealerships “It’s just a few more steps monitor their credit or
in the auto sales industry. interim we are continuing still selling cars?Several and a little bit more time.” even freeze their credit as
The company, based just to actively engage with major auto companies in- Although impacted Hawk an added layer of defense
outside of Chicago in Hoff- our customers and provide cluding Stellantis, Ford and Auto dealerships are still and consider signing up for
man Estates, Illinois, pro- them with alternate ways BMW confirmed to The As- able to serve customers by identify theft monitor insur-
vides software technology to conduct business,” she sociated Press last week “going back to the basics,” ance. You’ll also want to
to dealers that helps with added. that the CDK outage had Crane added that those be wary of any phishing
day-to-day operations like In messages to its custom- impacted some of their working in administration attempts. It’s best to make
facilitating vehicle sales, ers, the company has also dealers, but that sales op- are still “pulling out our sure you have reliable con-
financing, insurance and warned of “bad actors” erations continue. hair.” tact information for a com-
repairs. posing as members or affili- In light of the ongoing situ- He notes that there are pany by visiting their offi-
CDK serves more than ates of CDK to try to obtain ation, a spokesperson for now stacks of paper await- cial website, for example,
15,000 retail locations system access by contact- Stellantis said Friday that ing processing in place of as scammers sometimes
across North America, ac- ing customers. many dealerships had orders that went through try to take advantage of
cording to the company. It urged them to be cau- switched to manual pro- automatically on a com- news about data breaches
What happened last tious of any attempted cesses to serve customers. puter overnight. to gain your trust through
week?CDK experienced phishing. That includes writing up or- Group 1 Automotive Inc. look-alike emails or phone
back-to-back cyberat- The incident bore all the ders by hand. said Monday that the inci- calls.
tacks on Wednesday. The hallmarks of a ransomware A Ford spokesperson add- dent has disrupted its busi- Those are some best prac-
company shut down all of attack, in which targets are ed that the outage may ness applications and pro- tices to keep in mind
its systems after the first at- asked to pay a ransom to cause “some delays and cesses in its U.S. operations whether you’re a victim of
tack out of an abundance access encrypted files. But inconveniences at some that rely on CDK’s dealers’ CDK’s data breach or not,
of caution, according to CDK declined to comment dealers and for some cus- systems. Steinhauer said.
spokesperson Lisa Finney, directly neither confirm- tomers.” The company said that it “Unfortunately, in this day
and then shut down most ing or denying if it had re- However, many Ford and took measures to protect and age, our data is a valu-
systems again following the ceived a ransom demand. Lincoln customers are still and isolate its systems from able target and you have
second. “When you see an attack getting sales and service CDK’s platform. to make sure that you’re
“We have begun the res- of this kind, it almost always support through alternative In regulatory filings, Lithia taking steps to protect it,”
toration process,” Finney ends up being a ransom- routes being used at deal- Motors and AutoNation dis- he said.q