Thousands of car dealerships were ground to a halt during a normally busy holiday Wednesday by a cyber incident at CDK Global, a major software provider for dealers across the US.
He said CDK provided little information on what caused the outage that effectively shuttered many dealerships. Some can’t function at all and others have been forced to resort to paper record keeping for routine services like oil changes, Holton said. Other dealerships also struggled to do business. “We can’t access customer records, can’t set certain appointments. We can’t even print a repair order,” said Claire Glassmire, a receptionist at Barbera’s Autoland in Philadelphia. Employees have been using workarounds all day, said Glassmire, adding that “all our hands are tied.”
“Dealers are very committed to protecting their customer information,” said Mike Stanton, president and chief executive of the National Automobile Dealers Association, adding that they are “seeking information from CDK to determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident so they can respond appropriately.”