鈥淚t鈥檚 big. It鈥檚 massive.鈥�
That鈥檚 how one South Florida-based auto giant describes the impact of a cyberattack on the car business two weeks ago.
CDK Global is far from a household name. It is a software company that is about as important to the auto industry as gasoline.
鈥淚t really affects every part of the business 鈥� from the sales process to the financing process, to service, parts, accounting, payroll,鈥� said Jonathan Jordan, director of retail strategy at JM &A, a division of JM Family Enterprises based in Deerfield Beach. The company runs dealerships and works with thousands of dealers across the country.
鈥淩eally every aspect of [an auto dealer鈥檚] business, this system touches in some way. So when this system goes down, it's crippled a lot of dealerships and their ability to operate,鈥� Jordan said.
A cyberattack took down the software two weeks ago. CDK said Wednesday that most of the auto dealers using its software are back online. The company called the attack 鈥渁 ransom event.鈥�
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AutoNation, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, is the largest auto retailer in the country. It told investors the software problem impacted its business but its dealerships remained open.
鈥淭he full scope, nature and impact of the incident is not yet known,鈥� AutoNation wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 24. The company did not reply to 港澳天下彩for a request to comment.
At least one other South Florida-based auto dealership 港澳天下彩emailed acknowledged it had been impacted by the software outage.
Auto sales in March were up 3.5% from a year earlier in Florida, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That about matched the national increase of 3.3%.
Some private firms expect slower auto sales in the second quarter. Market research firm Cox Automotive estimates new car and truck sales were up 1% compared to a year earlier. It is difficult to know what impact the CDK Global hack has had on the pace of sales as buyers continue navigating high sticker prices and higher borrowing costs for auto loans.
Car and truck sales may have slowed because of the difficulty in purchasing a vehicle due to the software hack. Dealers, Jordan said, reverted to manual processes. As the software comes back online, 鈥渘ow all of that manual work that has been done is going to have to be redone and entered into this system. And so that's going to cause a big disruption and a lot of work as well,鈥� he said.
鈥淚t's really caused our whole industry to really take a step back and look at everything we're doing and make sure that we're being very vigilant with our systems,鈥� Jordan said.
This is at least the second cyberattack on a vital software provider for an industry. In February, Change Healthcare, a software company that matches insurance payments with healthcare charges, was attacked. The outage delayed payments to hospitals and others for weeks.
The firm's website still lists several of its systems as "partial service available" as of July 3. In a notice posted on its site, Change Healthcare says it expects to mail notifications about the security breech to patients late this month.
Editor's note: a previous version had an incomplete title for Jonathan Jordan.
