Jaguar Land Rover reveals it has been the victim of a cyberattack that “severely disrupted” its retail and vehicle-production activities.
The British luxury brand is working fast to restart computing capabilities in the areas affected by the cybersecurity attack, it says in a statement.
It also stresses that “there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen.”
The company informed its parent company, Tata Motors, while the attack was taking place, immediately shutting down affected systems and that it is now in the process of working to “resolve global IT issues,” the BBC reports.
Production at its Solihull, Halewood, Wolverhampton and Castle Bromwich plants is now suspended, according to The Times newspaper, and the staff has yet to be given a date to return to work.
Thousands of customers are also reported to have been told that their vehicle deliveries could be delayed by weeks or even months.
JLR’s plants usually produce about 1,000 cars a day and the supply-chain disruption will also affect the availability of parts for repairs.
The attack is the latest business challenge for the company following its announcement of delays in its planned launches of new battery-electric Range Rover and Jaguar models for more development while it hopes for a reversal of the current slowdown in consumer demand for BEVs.
JLR is now working under its new CEO, former Tata executive P.B. Balaji, following published accounts that revealed a near halving of profit forecasts for 2025 as a result of the U.S. tariffs on auto imports.
This is the latest cyberattack suffered by major U.K. businesses following on from similar attacks on retailers Marks & Spencer’s and the Co-op Group.
Hackers are targeting the automaker during the period of the nation’s biannual change of vehicle registration number, that denotes the six-month period of first registration, Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at cybersecurity specialist Huntress, says in an emailed response to WardsAuto.
“Cybercriminals know this, and many (take advantage of) the stopped clock of business functions as the leverage they need to force capitulation of ransomware demands,” he explains.
JLR’s quick response to the attack will have made the task of rebuilding its systems and protecting consumer data much less complicated, Nivedita Murthy, senior security consultant at security software specialist Black Duck tells WardsAuto.
“The fraud industry is thriving, and more and more people are falling victim due to the fact that a lot of information on customer activity is available online,” she says in an emailed response.
