5 Things To Know On The CDK Global Cyberattacks

The provider of software used by thousands of car dealerships says it has shut down most of its systems after a pair of attacks.

CDK Global, a provider of software used by thousands of car dealerships, has shut down most of its systems after a pair of cyberattacks in recent days.

The first attack came on Tuesday and the second attack struck on Wednesday, according to reports from media outlets including BleepingComputer.

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What follows are five things to know on the CDK Global cyberattacks.

First Attack

On Tuesday evening, CDK Global—which provides SaaS-based CRM, payroll, finance and other functions to 15,000 dealerships—reportedly became aware that it had been breached, according to BleepingComputer.

In response, CDK reportedly shut down its IT systems including logins and data center operations, leading to a widespread outage for car dealerships starting on Wednesday.

Second Attack

While CDK was working to recover from the first attack, the company was struck by a second attack late on Wednesday evening, according to CDK.

“We are sorry to inform you that we experienced an additional cyber incident late in the evening on June 19th,” reads a message to CDK customers posted Thursday on X.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the two attacks were related, according to TechCrunch.

System Shutdown

According to the message posted on X, the latest attack prompted CDK to shut down its systems for a second time.

“Out of continued caution and to protect our customers, we are once again proactively shutting down most of our systems,” the message posted Thursday reads.

In a statement provided to CRN, a CDK spokesperson confirmed Thursday that the company has shut down the majority of its systems.

“Late in the evening of June 19, we experienced an additional cyber incident and proactively shut down most of our systems,” CDK said in the statement provided to CRN, late Thursday afternoon EST.

No Time To Resolution

According to the statement provided to CRN, CDK has been working “in partnership with third party experts” to respond to the incidents. “We are assessing the impact and providing regular updates to our customers,” the company said.

“We remain vigilant in our efforts to reinstate our services and get our dealers back to business as usual as quickly as possible,” CDK added in the statement.

The message posted on X earlier Thursday indicated that CDK systems will remain down at least through the end of the day.

“At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution and therefore our dealers' systems will not be available at a minimum on Thursday, June 20th,” the message reads.

Impact On Dealerships

Bloomberg reported Thursday that dealerships that depend upon CDK software were unable to access records, complete transactions, handle orders for repairs or schedule appointments.

The general manager of a dealership group in Maryland told the outlet that CDK software had been down since early on Wednesday.

A dealership near Dallas, meanwhile, told Bloomberg that it has been handling sales transactions on paper but hasn’t been able to obtain titles due to the outage.