Cyberattack cripples car dealerships, chaos hits sellers, buyers

The ongoing systems outage at CDK Global, now in its second week, is causing significant financial damage to car dealerships, with losses potentially reaching $944 million if the disruption continues for three weeks, as estimated by Anderson Economic Group. This software glitch, triggered by a cyberattack, has severely impacted the operations of nearly 15,000 car dealerships in North America, making it challenging for them to manage customer interactions, orders, and sales.

Bernard Irvin, a salesperson at a Ford dealership in Greenville, South Carolina, expressed concern about the impact on his income due to the inability to track sales and customer engagements. “It’s going to affect payroll here,” he remarked, highlighting the personal financial uncertainty caused by the outage.

CDK Global has reported some progress in resolving the outage, with a few dealerships partially back online. The company has managed to restore its Dealer Management System (DMS) for a couple of small dealer groups and one large dealer group. Efforts are ongoing to revive other key applications such as the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Service solutions.

The outage has widespread implications for employees across the automotive retail sector. Many workers, like a body shop employee who spoke to CNN, are uncertain about their payment due to the disruption. Norm Phillips, a veteran car parts delivery driver, shared that the outage has halted his work, as dealerships are unable to track parts deliveries. Frustrated by the lack of communication about wages, Phillips is seeking alternative employment, fearing future security breaches.

Despite the technical setbacks, some dealership employees have had to resort to manual processes to continue operations. Irvin mentioned a particular incident where it took a week to finalize a sale due to the need to process everything manually, including writing out a bill of sale by hand for a Ford Bronco Sport.

After more than a week off work, Phillips was called back to manually track parts deliveries and check collections, suggesting some makeshift solutions are being implemented to mitigate the outage.

Overall, the situation at CDK Global has not only disrupted normal business operations but also instilled a sense of job insecurity among many employees, prompting concerns over the sustainability of their positions amidst potential future cyber threats.