Cyber Incident Causes CDK Software Blackout for North American Car Dealerships, Resulting in Financial Losses for Dealers and Business Interruptions

CDK Global has announced that its software systems are back online after a cyber incident caused a blackout. The incident began on June 19 and affected systems across the continent, impacting car dealerships that rely on CDK’s software for various aspects of their operations.

Car dealerships have been severely affected by the outage, with CDK’s system collapse potentially leading to significant financial losses if it had continued for three weeks. The company estimates that direct losses due to business interruptions for affected car dealers would have been about $944 million.

Despite efforts to restore the software, car buyers and dealers were at a standstill for days, making it difficult to track customer interactions, orders, and sales. This affected their ability to earn income and caused concerns among dealership employees like Bernard Irvin, a salesperson at a Ford dealership in South Carolina. He expressed concerns about payroll being affected by the outage at his dealership.

However, CDK’s progress in restoring its software is an encouraging sign that operations can soon return to normal for car dealerships across North America. The company is actively working to bring other applications back online and expects its Customer Relationship Management system to be operational by July 4.