Major Cyberattack Strikes Car Dealerships in Kansas City Area
A significant cyberattack has greatly impacted car dealers across the Kansas City metropolitan area and nationwide. This hacking incident is reportedly connected to eastern European hackers that have been targeting particular sectors of the automotive industry in the United States.
Hacking Incident Details
CDK Global, a prominent software provider servicing around 15,000 car dealerships across the U.S. and Canada, including several in the Kansas City area, suffered a major breach. The software company discovered the hack and promptly shut down their system consequently affecting the operations of numerous car dealerships, including Olathe Dodge and Olathe Toyota, forcing them to revert to pen and paper transactions.
Social Engineering Attacks
Principal Security Engineer at Alias Cyber Security, Tanner Shinn, revealed that the cyberattack employed social engineering techniques. This involved hackers directly contacting individuals at car dealerships through phone calls and emails in an attempt to coax them into leaking sensitive information. These sophisticated scams primarily target human error, bypassing the need to directly hack the system.
Dealerships Take Action
In response to the breach, Shinn urged dealerships to make their employees tread cautiously. With the continued threat to other dealerships, he advised against clicking on suspicious email links. Meanwhile, Robert Brogden Auto Group‘s Finance Director, Peter Sargent, informed that his dealership had fortunately not been directly impacted due to their decision to stop using CDK Global systems last September. Other dealerships have not been so lucky, caught up in a maelstrom that has thrown them back into manual, paper-intensive operations, negating two decades of advancements.
Impact on Customers
The cyberattack could potentially impact dealers’ customer service records and sales practices. The necessity to return to manual operations may lead to extended wait times and inefficiencies for customers seeking to purchase cars. The severity of these impacts largely depends on the individual dealerships’ contingency plans and their ability to adapt to such a disruptive event.
Restoring Normalcy
CDK Global confirmed over the weekend that it had begun restoring their systems, an operation expected to take a few days. The company has taken swift measures to ensure business continuity while mitigating the effects of the breach on their clients.
Eastern European Hackers Demand Ransom
Reports suggest that the group behind this massive data breach operates from eastern Europe and has demanded a ransom in tens of millions of dollars to restore the hacked systems. Federal agencies and law enforcement bodies are reportedly investigating the incident, with the aim of identifying and apprehending the hackers involved.
A Growing Trend
This cyberattack is not an isolated incident but rather part of a growing trend of cybercrimes targeting industries and organizations across the globe. In today’s digital age, businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on advanced technologies for their day-to-day operations, making them prime targets for cybercriminals. This incident serves as yet another stark reminder for businesses to implement robust security measures to protect their data and systems from potential cyber threats.
