Cyber ​​attack paralyzes operations of up to 15,000 car dealerships

Cyber ​​attack paralyzes operations of up to 15,000 car dealerships

Up to 15,000 car dealerships in the US were unable to operate after a cyberattack brought software provider CDK Global to a standstill.

The company provides software for running auto dealerships, such as CRM, payroll, support and service, inventory, financing, sales and more. Its customers include General Motors dealers and Group 1 Automotive.

CDK Global announced on Wednesday (June 19) that it had detected a cyberattack on its systems.

“We are currently experiencing a cyber incident. Out of caution and concern for our customers, we have shut down most of our systems,” CDK spokeswoman Lisa Finney said in a statement provided to the media.

“We are currently assessing the overall impact and do not currently have an estimated time of arrival.”

“We continue to conduct extensive testing of all other applications and will provide updates as soon as we bring those applications back online.”

Later Wednesday, CDK’s central document management and digital retail systems were restored.

While the exact number of dealerships affected by the incident was not disclosed, CDK said it serves nearly 15,000 dealerships with its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

According to media reports, employees expressed concern that threat actors could potentially gain control of car dealerships’ internal networks.

CDK Global’s software requires dealerships to set up an always-on VPN to their data centers so the platform can be accessed from locally installed applications. According to BleepingComputer, the platform has administrative privileges that are used to update the software and could be used to control the network.

CDK has recommended that its customers disable the VPN for the time being.

At the time of writing, Cyber ​​​​Daily had not yet managed to identify the threat actor behind the attack.

Daniel Croft

Born in the heart of Western Sydney, Daniel Croft is a passionate journalist with an understanding and experience of writing about the technology space. After studying at Macquarie University, he joined Momentum Media in 2022 and has written for various publications including Australian Aviation, Cyber ​​Security Connect and Defence Connect. Outside of writing, Daniel has a keen interest in music and spends his time playing in bands around Sydney.