CDK Global investigates cyber incident and temporarily shuts down all systems

(Reuters) – Retail technology and software provider CDK Global was investigating a cyber incident and proactively shut down all of its systems for a short time, it said on Wednesday.

The company, which supplies software to car dealerships, said its central dealer management system and digital retail solutions had been restored. It said it had also conducted tests and consulted outside experts following the incident.

“We continue to conduct extensive testing of all other applications and will provide updates as soon as we bring those applications back online,” CDK said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

According to a Bloomberg News report, CDK’s systems first went down around 2:00 a.m. EDT (06:00 GMT), but some functions were back online as of Wednesday afternoon.

The company was purchased by investment firm Brookfield Business Partners in April 2022 for $6.41 billion in an all-cash deal, delisting the last major publicly traded provider of software for auto dealers and manufacturers.

“We are aware of a reported CDK outage. We are currently assessing any impact to our Ford dealers,” Ford Motor told Reuters in an emailed statement.

General Motors and BMW did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside U.S. business hours on whether their dealerships were affected by the cyber incident.

(Reporting by Juveria Tabassum; Editing by Josie Kao and Leslie Adler)