Software maker CDK says it will take “several days” to bring its systems back online after a spate of cyber attacks, as US car dealerships and auto shops that depend on the company’s software enter a second week interruption.
In a statement, CDK spokeswoman Lisa Finney confirmed that the company has “started the process of restoring” its systems and that it “continues to actively work with our customers and provide them with alternative ways of doing business.”
No specific timeline was given for the recovery. A recorded phone message for CDK customers heard by TechCrunch on Monday said the company “will share the timeline once confirmed.”
The recorded message said: “Unable to perform DMS integration tasks,” referring to the company’s dealer management software, which remains largely non-functional.
CDK, which makes customer management software for auto dealerships and auto shops to manage their customer and vehicle records, provides its technologies to approximately 15,000 dealerships across North America.
The cyber attack – reportedly ransomware — began on June 19, causing widespread disruption to CDK dealership customers. CDK confirmed it suffered an additional cyberattack later in the day, which it said was likely to lead to widespread outages. It is unclear if, or how, the second cyberattack is related to the first.
According to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the incident, the hackers are demanding the company pays tens of millions of dollars in ransom to get their systems back. It is not yet known if the company has or plans to pay the ransom, and CDK spokesperson Finney declined to say when asked by TechCrunch.
Since the start of the work week, dealerships across the United States continue to experience outages. Group 1 Automotive, one of the largest car dealerships in the US, said filing Monday with government regulators that it continued to experience disruptions to its US operations, which rely on CDK’s software.
Several other companies rely on CDK software, including Sonic Automotive and rental giant Penskealso reported continuous outages due to the CDK cyberattack at various levels of their operations.
Sonic said that as the incident was ongoing, it was not yet able to determine what, if any, customer data was stolen.
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