CDK Global, a company that provides car dealerships across the United States with software to manage sales and other services, has been hacked, prompting the company to temporarily shut down most of its systems.
This effectively prevents about 15,000 car dealers from making sales. GM dealers rely on CDK systems, as does Group 1 Automotive, an auto retailer with hundreds of dealerships across the United States. Holman, with agents in eight US states, is another CDK client.
“We are actively investigating a cyber incident,” a CDK spokesperson told CBS News. “Out of an abundance of caution and concern for our customers, we have shut down most of our systems and are working hard to get everything up and running as quickly as possible.”
Later Thursday afternoon, CDK said that after conducting tests and consulting with outside experts, some of its systems had been restarted.
“With the work done so far, our core [dealer management system] Digital retail solutions have been restored. “We are continuing to conduct extensive testing on all other applications, and will provide updates when we bring these applications back online,” CDK said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
The company’s dealer management system, or DMS, is a hub that allows companies to monitor operations from a single interface, while retail tools allow dealers to transact online and in showrooms.
What is CDK?
The CDK provides agents with tools to manage payroll, inventory, and office operations.
It also touts its cybersecurity capabilities on its website. “CDK Cybersecurity Solutions provides a three-tiered cybersecurity strategy to prevent, protect and respond to cyberattacks so you can defend your agency,” she says.
When did the cyber attack start?
The cyber attack on CDK Global began on Tuesday evening. Sleeping computera cybersecurity news site, on Wednesday took the 15,000 car dealerships it serves offline.
It is currently unknown who or group is behind the cyberattack.
How do agents respond?
It appears that some agents were creative to continue doing business during the outage. Agency staff posted information about the outage Reddit On Wednesday, they announced that they were relying on spreadsheets and sticky notes to sell small parts to customers and make repairs, but had not made any large transactions.
One employee asked other dealership employees, “How many of you are standing around because your entire store is CDK-based?” Under the heading “CDK Down,” users in Wisconsin and Colorado confirmed that their dealer transaction systems were offline.
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