The Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack that took place on September 1 started as a potential small data breach and turned into a nightmare for the company.
The September cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover didn’t just compromise data; it shut down entire production lines. Here’s the timeline of what happened, how long factories stayed dark, and what JLR is doing to bounce back from one of the automotive industry’s most disruptive breaches.
It’s been a month; where are we with the Jagaur Land Rover cyberattack of September?
The JLR production shutdown began as the calendar turned to September. What started as a potential small issue at the end of August has become a month-long closure of the brand’s factories following a massive hack into the cybersecurity at JLR, which should serve as a warning to the entire automotive industry. This new cyberattack makes many in the industry think back to the automotive cyber breach of 2024, in which many dealers in the United States were shut down due to a hack that impacted a CMS system that nearly every dealership in the country utilized. This could signal a problem with centralized data usage.
When will the Jaguar factory closure end?
The Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack of September has continued all month and impacts factories in various countries. Part of the JLR recovery plan involves ensuring suppliers are covered with a new $2 billion loan that’s been underwritten by the UK government. The automotive company has the cash flow to cover its own expenses, and can rely on parent company Tata, if necessary. However, suppliers could face serious problems from this shutdown, which has halted their businesses as well as those of Jaguar Land Rover.
JLR is going about this issue using a three-pronged approach. First, they are working to rebuild their systems with improved security and better car manufacturer ransomware to avoid a breach in the future. Second, they have a strong focus on current customers, ensuring parts and necessary support are given to those customers. Third, the company is backing its suppliers with a loan that has been provided by the government. This approach should hopefully get workers back in the Jaguar Land Rover plants and allow the company to begin producing vehicles once again. Soon, this could all be a bad memory, but it also means the automaker faces new financial challenges and stress based on lost revenue and a new loan that wasn’t anticipated.
English-language hackers created the Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack of September
The Scattered Spider hackers seem to have been part of this attack. They are known for attacking corporations in the United States only a few years ago. Although some arrests were committed in the UK in relation to previous attacks on M&S and Co-op, this new attack seems to have help from two other groups called Lapsus$ and ShinyHunters.
The M&S attack was a ransomware attack, which effectively locks the IT systems. Although JLR didn’t confirm the nature of the attack, it had to close down factories before learning what type of attack they were victims of and how to solve the problem. A person called Rey claimed on a Telegram channel that they had extracted data from JLR earlier this year, which means this person might be the starting point of this attack and its impact on the automaker.
Losses of $6.8 million per day add up
The Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack that has lasted all of September thus far, is said to cost the company as much as $6.8 million per day. There are three company plants in the UK and they normally produce about 1000 vehicles per day, but all that have been lost for a full month so far. These losses extend to JLR factories in other countries where the data breach reached far and wide, making this a complete company takedown.
Solving the problem caused by the Jaguar Land Rover cyberattack of September
The latest Land Rover cyberattack took down nearly every system the automaker uses. This caused factory workers to be put on leave indefinitely, and nearly all computer-based systems are offline. Managers have access to emails, and the company found a workaround to make payments and ship cars to customers, but most other systems are down. The company’s focus has been on keeping current customers happy, but workforce morale is extremely low, with workers unable to go to work and earn a paycheck. Hopefully, that will change very soon as the company continues to figure out how to bring everything back online after this attack, which could cost billions in lost revenue.
Hopefully, JLR will be operational once again and avoid any future security breaches.
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