Jaguar Land Rover Enters Third Week of Factory Shutdown After Cyberattack

Automaker Jaguar Land Rover is entering the third week of a shutdown of its factories caused by a cyberattack and has extended the pause until Sept. 24.

The company announced the cyber incident in a Sept. 2 statement, saying that it had shut down its systems to mitigate the impact of the incident.

“At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen, but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted,” the statement said.

On Sept. 6, Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement that it was working around the clock to restart its global applications after the cyber incident and was working with third-party cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement.

The company said then that its retail partners remained open.

On Wednesday (Sept. 10), Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement that it was still working around the clock with the cybersecurity specialists to restart its global applications.

“As a result of our ongoing investigation, we now believe that some data has been affected and we are informing the relevant regulators,” the statement said. “Our forensic investigation continues at pace, and we will contact anyone as appropriate if we find that their data has been impacted.”

In its latest update, Jaguar Land Rover said in a Tuesday (Sept. 16) statement that it has extended the pause in its production until Sept. 24.

“We have taken this decision as our forensic investigation of the cyber incident continues, and as we consider the different stages of the controlled restart of our global operations, which will take time,” the statement said.

Bloomberg reported Monday that Jaguar Land Rover’s factories have been at a standstill and that some of its suppliers, such as European parts manufacturers, have had to pause or scale back their own production.

Reuters reported Monday that the automaker’s three factories in the United Kingdom usually produce 1,000 cars per day, employ 33,000 people and support 104,000 jobs at smaller companies in its supply chain across the country.

This is the latest in a series of cyberattacks that includes a data breach at credit reporting agency TransUnion that affected more than 4.4 million customers, third-party data breaches that affected luxury retailers Pandora and Chanel, and a system breach at insurer Allianz Life that impacted most of its U.S. customers’ personal data.