Late last month, CDK Global – which serves close to 15,000 automotive dealerships in the U.S. – shut down most of its systems following a cyberattack that occurred early one Wednesday morning. The company then set out to determine the scope of the damage from that attack, as well as figure out how to patch any holes that might be present in its software. However, that process hit a bit of a snag the very next day when CDK brought its systems back online, only to experience a second cyberattack. As one might imagine, this downtime continues to have a big impact on many Ford dealers, but it seems as if they may not have to deal with it much longer.
As Ford Authority previously reported, CDK originally anticipated coming up with a workaround for the issues stemming from its cyberattack in a day or two, but later pushed that back to last Sunday. Now that this date has come and gone, Ford dealers using CDK managements systems should be back online by late this coming Wednesday or early Thursday morning, according to a new report from Reuters. “We are continuing our phased approach to the restoration process and are rapidly bringing dealers live on the dealer management system,” CDK said in a statement, adding that it is “actively working” on bringing its systems back online.
While a small handful of dealers are in fact once again using CDK’s management systems, a number of Ford dealers have been impacted by the fallout from this cyberattack, which includes Village Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. That store sold around 100 vehicles in one week following the attack, though those transactions were in a bit of a limbo since CDK generates the paperwork needed to pass them on to the new owners.
Meanwhile, a group of hackers believed to be based in eastern Europe has claimed responsibility for these acts, and are demanding millions of dollars in ransom money before they’ll agree to stop the attacks. CDK reportedly plans to pay this ransom, but according to recent reports, those plans are subject to change, it seems.
We’ll have more on this cyberattack soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.
No Comments yet