Good evening, this is John Doe reporting for CNN. Thousands of auto dealerships in the United States and Canada are facing a critical situation as CDK Global, a company that provides software for 15,000 dealerships, experienced two cyber incidents resulting in a system shutdown that has now entered its third day.
CDK Global spokesman Lisa Finney issued a statement on Wednesday saying, “Out of an abundance of caution and concern for our customers, we have shut down most of our systems and are working diligently to get everything up and running as quickly as possible.” Despite the company announcing that most critical computer systems were back online, another incident occurred Thursday morning, leading to an extended outage.
CDK Global has proactively shut down most of its systems and is working with third-party experts to assess the impact of the cyber incidents. Salespeople at affected dealerships are unable to access essential information such as negotiated deals and customer appointments stored on servers, impacting the ability to close sales during the busy summer car-buying season.
Sonic Automotive described the situation as a “cybersecurity incident” and stated that the outage disrupted critical dealership operations including sales, inventory, and accounting functions. While some dealerships are finding alternative ways to handle sales and customer service, others fear losing business to competitors that are not affected by the outage.
Automakers like Kia, Toyota, Stellantis, and Ford have stepped in to assist affected dealerships in finding solutions to continue serving customers. Ford stated that customers can contact their Customer Relationship Center for sales and service support, ensuring that they receive the assistance they need during the outage.
The impact of the CDK Global outage continues to unfold as dealerships work to navigate the challenges presented by the prolonged system shutdown. Stay tuned to CNN for further updates on this developing story.
