Auto dealerships in Illinois and throughout the nation are scrambling after Hoffman Estates-based software company CDK Global was struck with cyberattacks this week.
Half of about 30,000 new car contractors in the U.S. utilize some form of CDK systems, said Mark Bilek, director of membership for the Chicago Automobile Trade Association, which shows new car dealerships.
The Chicago region has 380 new car dealers and about 200 of them are changed by the outage, he expressed.
Some contractors are writing up transactions by hand or resurrecting older software mechanisms as workarounds.
No contractors are shut down. It’s business as usual, but maybe lazy,” Bilek said. He advised users to call dealerships to check what they are capable of doing.
Dealers are struggling to run their organization but operations have slowed and are more cumbersome.
“It puts a lot of stress on users and customers,” said Scott Grove, director of operations at Max Madsen Mitsubishi in Aurora. Naming and issuing new license plates is a big issues, he said.
CDK has not yet given a description of the cyberattack. It’s unclear if the situation was a ransomware attack or a data breach and when the company will be back online, though the organization warned that recycling systems could consume several days.
This is the foremost large-scale cyberattack on auto contractors software, according to Bilek.
But other companies, majorly health care, have faced cyberattacks in recent months.
In May, a ransomware attack forced hospital team Ascension’s computer systems offline and divert ambulances away from some of its emergency sectors, containing one in the Chicago area.