CDK Global and their car dealership software: What we know about the ransomware attack

CDK Global, which supplies over 15,000 car dealerships in the United States with commercial software for selling vehicles, has reportedly been the target of a major cyberattack. On early Wednesday morning, CDK informed its clients that their servers would be turned off to prevent any further leakage of sensitive information targeted by the hackers responsible for the attack. For dealerships across the country, this has brought their operations to a halt. Though the company has communicated with the dealerships that use its software, no public-facing comments have been made since Wednesday afternoon.

What we know so far

Very little is known about the attack, but CDK did notify users around 2 a.m. ET about the incident and that they had “shut down a majority of [their] systems.” No timeline has been provided as to when the systems will be operational, with the company only noting that they will inform users of the system as updates become available.

The automotive outlet Ford Authority reported that the software impacted includes several products, including CDK Service, Fortellis Integration Portal, Modern Retail CRM, and others, calling attention to the scope of the outage currently being experienced by users of these programs.

Who is responsible for the attack?

The company has not reported who could be behind the cyberattack, but this incident follows another on Findlay Auto Group that took place last week. No comments have been made that these attacks are connected, but they raise serious concerns about the security of the software, whose importance can not be underscored. BleepingComputer, an outlet dedicated to cyber security (among other topics), warned that the attack could mean the systems will be offline for days, and the incident taking weeks to resolve itself is not out of the realm of possibilities.

See also: What is a ransomware attack? How to avoid it and what to do if your data is held hostage