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If you’re thinking about buying a new car or taking your car in for service at the dealership this weekend, expect the long and painful process you expect to experience to be much longer and more difficult to endure.
A large-scale cyberattack impacts a major supplier of automotive dealer software in the United States and Canada that uses other analog technologies.
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according to The Wall Street Journal And Car News, a major cyberattack affected the daily operations of more than 15,000 car dealerships. The software that forms the backbone of their operations has been shut down for several days.
CDK Global, a multinational software company owned by Brookfield Business Partners since 2022, offers a type of specialized software known as Dealer Management Systems, or DMS; The systems that dealers rely on to document sales in the showroom, track service records, and search for auto parts in the service department.
On June 19, the company reported that it had been hit by a cyberattack, though it was able to restore most of its core functionality later that day only to face another cyberattack.
The next day, June 20, it alerted merchants using its DMS software that it would close most of its functionality as a warning measure, which has been extended until June 21 with no solution in sight.
“We continue to act cautiously and to protect our customers in response to the cyber incidents that occurred on June 19. In addition to our customer systems, several integration points have been disabled,” CDK Global told its clients.
“At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolving the issue, so our dealer systems will likely be unavailable for several days. We will continue to provide updates as they become available.”
Although car dealers have workarounds to use in emergency situations like power outages or storms, losing the software that makes their work so streamlined and efficient has turned into a slog that has become extremely difficult.
In separate threads on the Reddit auto technician community r/Justrolledintotheshop, technicians at dealers and service bays affected by the outage expressed that their jobs have become more difficult, as simple repair and maintenance tasks must be manually documented.
said a Reddit user by the name u/phxbimmer One topic Without the CDK software, computerized work at a BMW dealership’s parts office in Arizona was reduced to “manually writing invoices and manually looking up parts/inventory prices,” noting that they “are afraid of all the manual data entry” when this will be done. CDK is coming back online.”
in another subjectReddit user and Subaru’s chief technician u/Chippy569 said that without CDK, “there’s no idea how we would make our money,” adding that the process of ordering and obtaining parts to repair or maintain cars “is an absolute collective process.” –K.
“They have no access to inventory, no way to invoice anything, no pricing matrix, etc,” they told other Reddit users. “Right now, it’s like handwritten spreadsheets or Excel spreadsheets of what VIN got what part#s and just guessing on prices based on the list. Doing an estimate for anything more than two parts right now is a complete ordeal.”
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Enterprising hackers take cheap shots
To make an already bad situation much worse, CDK customer merchants have reported hacking attempts by bad actors posing as CDK IT support staff.
According to Car Newsthe scammers would phone agency employees and ask for their credentials with the promise of restoring service.
“We are aware that bad actors are contacting our customers and partners, posing as CDK members or affiliates, and attempting to gain access to the system,” CDK warned its customers. “CDK Partners will not and have not requested access or passwords to customer systems or environments. Any request should be immediately treated as suspicious.”
In addition, CDK has asked its customers to be extra vigilant and not disclose any sensitive information to anyone they do not know.
“Please emphasize to your employees the importance of being aware of phishing scams and taking necessary precautions. Deal only with known or approved CDK partners, and do not provide sensitive information such as passwords or provide system access under any circumstances,” the company said.
Competitors enter
Traders running software from CDK competitors may see opportunity amid the madness. according to Wall Street JournalJPMorgan Chase analysts said on June 21 that dealers are resorting to using analog methods to write car sales and terms, but noted that dealer service departments may lose money to other dealers that do not use the CDK, as they may be able to perform repairs and service more quickly. .
However, CDK’s competitors see the outage affecting the vending industry as a whole. According to Automotive News, they are doing everything they can to help dealers affected by the outage to continue operating.
in He commented on a June 21 post on LinkedIn Regarding the outage, Chris Walsh, president of CDK’s competitor, Reynolds & Reynolds, said the cyberattacks on CDK are an attack on the dealer industry, noting, “The impact of this goes well beyond CDK — it’s hurting a lot of dealers and consumers.” “We are entering the peak of summer,” he said, adding: “We all need to find ways to help” and “we feel every merchant is affected and we are doing everything we can to help them.”
According to Walsh, Reynolds and Reynolds are looking forward to helping provide dealers with paper repair orders, purchasing forms and retail contracts in the meantime, and providing dealers with access to their Desking software to close deals on showroom floors for free.
said Jay Vijayan, CEO of CDK competitor Tekion He is linkedin He “couldn’t sleep” amid the power outage, he said, adding that he and his team were “discussing different options to help.”
“If matters are not resolved within the next 24 hours we will come up with a plan to assist merchants so they can [dealers] They can run their business.”
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