By Ben Thorpe – Equipment World
In late June, media reports of “cyber incidents” impacting dealer management system (DMS) provider CDK Global began to circulate. The cyberattacks downed management systems at equipment and auto dealerships across North America.
Initially, the company was able to restore its core dealer management system (DMS) and Digital Retailing solutions, only for an additional attack to occur later that day that “proactively shut down most of our systems,” according to a report from Equipment World’s sister publication, Truck, Parts and Service.
Kim Rominger, CEO of the North American Equipment Dealers Association, gave the following statement to Equipment World on July 12 regarding the hack: “The breach took place at the CDK level, not at the dealership level,” he says. “We understand that the cybersecurity attack was to demand a ransom from CDK, not so to access our customer information. That is unconfirmed at this time, but we are closely monitoring it.
“We understand that most dealers on CDK are back up and running at some level, and this is improving every day. Our association has provided guidelines to dealers to help them get back up and running in a secure way. Also, not every dealer is using CDK in our industry. There are five other providers, and they haven’t been impacted, so it’s not as widespread as in the auto industry.