CDK Global, the provider of a software platform for auto dealerships, has had to shut down most of its systems due to what it described as “a cyber incident.” This had serious consequences for car dealers in the US, with reports saying that thousands of dealerships there were largely paralyzed for several hours on Wednesday.
Among other things, CDK provides a sales platform. It claims around 15,000 US car dealerships are among its customers.
For security reasons, the company shut down all systems on Wednesday morning, a company spokeswoman said, adding that its core dealer management system and digital retailing solutions had been restored later in the day.
However, it didn’t last long, as late on Wednesday evening the company experienced an additional cyber incident, prompting it to once again shut down most of its systems.
“In partnership with third party experts, we are assessing the impact and providing regular updates to our customers. We remain vigilant in our efforts to reinstate our services and get our dealers back to business as usual as quickly as possible,” the spokeswoman said via email on Thursday morning..
As the outage continued, several car dealership employees reported on the social media platform Reddit that they could no longer work properly due to the outages, and some said they were sent home.