Car dealerships across North America have faced major disruptions this week. CDK Global, a company that provides software for thousands of auto dealers in the U.S. and Canada, was hit by back-to-back cyberattacks on Wednesday. That led to an outage that continued to impact many of their operations on Friday. For prospective car buyers, that may mean delays at dealerships or vehicle orders written up by hand, with no immediate end in sight. Here’s what you need to know.
As of Friday morning, a recorded message from CDK on a hotline detailing updates for its customers said “we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution — and therefore our dealer systems will not be available, likely for several days.” Customer care support channels also remain unavailable, it said. The message added that the company was aware of “bad actors” posing as members or affiliates of CDK to try to obtain system access by contacting customers.