Last month, CDK Global was impacted by a cyberattack/ransomware attack stemming from a group of European hackers, which had tremendous ripple effects on more than one Ford dealer – along with the 15,000 total dealerships that company serves in the U.S. For several weeks, certain dealers were unable to complete the sales process, leaving them scrambling to figure out how to continue to do business while they waited on a resolution. That finally happened earlier this month when CDK systems came back online, but the damage was already done.
That cyberattack is estimated to have cost dealers a whopping $1 billion in lost sales and other areas, though CDK recently indicated that it will financially compensate those impacted by the outage. It’s unclear what that compensation will consist of, but one Pennsylvania-area Ford dealer – Manderbach Ford in Hamburg, Pennsylvania – has filed a lawsuit against CDK, along with DLR Auto Group in Agoura Hills, California, Smith Collision Center in Ada, Oklahoma, and Broadway Precision Collision in Ada, Oklahoma, according to Automotive News.
Manderbach Ford is accusing CDK of breach of contract, while the lawsuit – filed in the U.S. Northern District Court of Illinois – also adds claims of negligence and unjust enrichment to the tally. The four plaintiffs are also seeking to make this lawsuit a class action, potentially adding more “automotive businesses in the United States who used or relied upon CDK Global’s services and sustained interruption to their business operations as a result of the Data Breaches.” This latest filing adds to the 10 lawsuits already filed against CDK over similar allegations.
“The CDK outage could hardly have occurred at a worse time for Manderbach Ford,” the dealership said in the lawsuit. “The early summer weeks leading up to the July 4th holiday are often among the highest grossing times for auto dealers. But, rather than processing vehicle sales and carrying on with business as usual, the CDK outage created chaos for the management and staff at Manderbach Ford. Manderbach Ford was unable to cut checks through the CDK system, and had to resort to using pen and paper to process sales. It was also unable to access certain rebates and incentives being offered, which further cut into potential sales. Scheduling for vehicle service was also disrupted.”
We’ll have more on the fallout from this cyberattack soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for 24/7 Ford news coverage.
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