CDK Global continues to struggle with the consequences of a major cyberattackwith some of the software services the company provides to thousands of auto dealers in the United States not yet fully functional.
Fallout from the ransomware attack has dragged into a third week for the 15,000 auto dealers who rely on CDK's sales, inventory management and customer relations systems to run their businesses. CDK said Saturday that the company is making progress in restoring its systems for all its customers.
“We are continuing our gradual approach to the restoration process. We have successfully brought two small dealer groups and a large group of live listed dealers onto the dealer management system,” a CDK spokesperson said in a statement on CBS MoneyWatch. “We are also actively working to deliver additional live applications, including our customer relationship management and service solutions, and our customer service channels.”
In an automated recording on the dealership's customer helpline, the company also said it has restarted customer service calls.
“We're happy to report that our customer support channels are now live. Starting today, you can call us for help,” the company said in the recording. CDK noted that starting Monday, it will offer extended hours for customer service calls.
CDK said last week in a statement and recorded message to dealers that it did not expect services to be restored to all customers before June 30.
Car dealers say the CDK outage has hurt their business. The attack is expected to reduce dealers' June sales by about 100,000 vehicles, or more than 7%, compared to the same period in 2023, according to a JD Power forecast.
The disruption comes at an inopportune time for auto buyers and sellers, slowing business during the traditionally busy summer sales season.
“June is one of the biggest sales months for the auto industry, and we expected sales to be pretty strong,” Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at JD Power, told CBS MoneyWatch.
However, many of the transactions that were not completed in June due to the attack could be completed in July.
