{"id":73565,"date":"2024-06-21T12:03:19","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=73565"},"modified":"2024-06-21T12:03:19","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:03:19","slug":"car-dealer-chaos-across-u-s-and-canada-as-massive-cyberattack-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=73565","title":{"rendered":"Car-dealer chaos across U.S. and Canada as massive cyberattack continues – Autoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dealership<\/a> in Phoenix is handwriting paper contracts and gauging creditworthiness with guesswork. A Jeep<\/a> owner in Alabama keeps calling about when a replacement part will be in stock. A family in New Jersey is waiting for word on when they can take delivery of their new Audi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such is life for auto retailers and their customers across the U.S. and Canada after CDK Global \u2014 a software provider to some 15,000 dealers<\/a> \u2014 was waylaid by debilitating cyberattacks. The barrage began June 19, costing U.S. dealers a burst of business on a federal holiday. CDK has warned that a second incident Thursday is likely to keep its systems down for several more days.<\/p>\n

The attacks have had a crippling effect on an industry that topped $1.2 trillion in sales last year just in the U.S. CDK\u2019s core product \u2014 a suite of software tools referred to as a dealership management system, or DMS \u2014 underpins virtually every element of auto retailers\u2019 day-to-day business.<\/p>\n

There are only a handful of DMS providers for dealers to choose from after decades of consolidation. That\u2019s left thousands of retailers highly reliant on each of the select few software companies that enable them to line up financing and insurance<\/a>, manage vehicle and parts inventory, and complete sales and repairs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CDK\u2019s parent, Brookfield Business Partners LP, had its worst trading day since October, plunging 5.7% on Thursday. Stock in dealer group AutoNation Inc. fell 3.6%, their biggest drop in two months. Group 1 Automotive Inc., Sonic<\/a> Automotive Inc. and Lithia Motors Inc. shares also slumped.<\/p>\n

For Joshua Adams, the Jeep owner in Millbrook, Alabama, CDK\u2019s outage comes at an inopportune time. He\u2019d already gone weeks without his 2020 Renegade<\/a> sport utility vehicle as he waited for a warranty<\/a> claim to be sorted out.<\/p>\n

This week, he called his dealership to check if the final part needed to fix his vehicle had arrived, as expected. The service center was unsure, saying it was impossible to know because of the hack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can\u2019t tell me where my part is or when it will arrive,\u201d Adams said. \u201cWe are just up in the air.\u201d He expects the delay will cost several hundred dollars in additional expenses for a rental car<\/a> he\u2019s driving in the meantime.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, the Lanni family was excited to take delivery of a new Audi Q5<\/a>. Daniel Lanni and his wife had removed the child seats from their old vehicle so they\u2019d be ready for plopping into the new SUV. But on June 19, their dealer called to say the store\u2019s computer system was down, and it wasn\u2019t clear when they\u2019d be able to take delivery.<\/p>\n

Lanni and his wife re-installed the car seats for their children \u2013 ages 3, 5 and 8 \u2013 and said they hadn\u2019t heard more from the dealer as of Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids were really excited,\u201d said Lanni, a 41-year-old commercial real estate broker. \u201cThey\u2019re upset and now they\u2019re just regularly asking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Padron, a sales manager at a Nissan dealership in Phoenix, said that business was \u201calmost at a standstill\u201d on Thursday. Everyone who\u2019s purchased a vehicle from the store since 2014 \u2014 when it began using CDK\u2019s software \u2014 has data stored in the system, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably more than 50,000\u201d customers, he said.<\/p>\n

The dealership is now handwriting paper contracts and finding novel ways to get deals done. He said workers in the finance department have had to \u201cguess\u201d customers\u2019 creditworthiness based on \u201cwhatever information they can gather.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the attack began, the dealership has been able to process about half the transactions it usually can. Anything complicated \u2014 say, a purchase involving a trade-in<\/a> or unusual financing \u2014 simply can\u2019t get done.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor this store, I\u2019d like to have 10 complete deals done a day,\u201d Padron said. \u201cFive, six, seven would be nice today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A dealership in Phoenix is handwriting paper contracts and gauging creditworthiness with guesswork. A Jeep owner in Alabama keeps calling about when a replacement part will be in stock. A family in New Jersey is waiting for word on when they can take delivery of their new Audi. Such is life for auto retailers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}