CDK Says It’s Recovering From Hack Faster Than Expected

CDK Global has “substantially all” of its car dealership customers back online with their management systems, about two weeks after the company’s systems were taken down by hackers.

The company had said Monday (July 1) that some of its systems could be down as late as the morning of Thursday (July 4), according to the report.

“We are ahead of the anticipated schedule,” Tony Macrito, senior communications director at CDK, told Bloomberg in a report posted Tuesday (July 2).

CDK’s dealership management system serves as a hub for car dealers’ day-to-day business, helping with everything from service to parts to sales, the report said.

The taking down of the company’s system may have slowed vehicle sales to an annualized rate of 15.8 million vehicles in June, compared with 16.1 million during the same month last year, per the report.

Some of the largest dealership groups in North America have said the cyberattack may have a “material” impact on their finances, according to the report.

CDK had its systems knocked offline by two cyberattacks in mid-June, impacting some 15,000 car dealerships that use its software.

Dealerships found themselves having to use pen and paper, because the takedown of the dealership management system left them unable to conduct credit checks, generate auto loans, complete sales contracts, track their inventory or executive other sales processes digitally.

It was reported Friday (June 28) that the hackers who struck CDK are affiliated with a Russia-backed group that has been tied to 96 extortion attempts since May 2023 and has likely committed dozens more.

This is one of several such incidents that have happened in recent weeks.

On Wednesday (June 26), Arkansas-based Evolve Bank & Trust publicly confirmed news that a ransomware gang had hacked the bank and was posting customer data on the dark web.

On June 24, retailer Neiman Marcus notified customers of a data breach that affected 64,472 people. The company said the “external system breach (hacking)” occurred on April 14 and was discovered on May 24.

In another recent incident, Live Nation said its Ticketmaster system could have been compromised by a hacker who then tried to sell customer information on the dark web.