MENTOR — A cyberattack impacting automobile dealerships nationwide, including Northeast Ohio, has been going on for nearly a week.
CDK Global said it had back-to-back cyber incidents and is working to restore its systems.
The company’s dealership management systems are used at 15,000 dealerships in the U.S.
About half of new car dealerships in Northeast Ohio used it for daily functions like keeping records of negotiated deals, accounting, and maintenance and repair orders. It also allows customers to electronically sign for services.
Bloomberg is reporting a group claiming to have hacked CDK Global is asking for tens of millions of dollars in ransom.
News 5 reached out to CDK Global Monday afternoon. A company spokesperson said there’s “no additional information at this time.”
The situation is slowing down operations for employees and causing issues for customers looking to purchase vehicles or get the ones they already own fixed.
"I was here before a lot of these systems existed. And it's definitely made life a lot easier,” said Norvell Todd, General Manager of Classic Hyundai in Mentor.
The CDK Global hack doesn’t directly impact Todd’s dealership.
“We choose to use Reynolds and Reynolds (the) same type of program but it's just completely different company,” Todd said.
While computers certainly improve the efficiency of operations, Todd said employees can still draw up contracts and do other paperwork manually.
“It slows down the process,” Todd said.
News 5 asked viewers on Instagram and Facebook if they were running into any issues in the wake of the cyber-attack.
On Instagram last week, eileenklein28 wrote, “Yes! Was scheduled for recall work on Thursday. Dealership could not accommodate.”
Another user, bnmillsdvmms wrote, “Yep. Ran into that issue yesterday when dropping off a car for service. They still took the car in to work on it but (didn’t) have me sign any paperwork since their computers were down.”
On Facebook, Terri Jones wrote, “My service has been rescheduled til next week. They could have still don it but the wait time would be extreme so I opted to reschedule.”
Amanda Aquila wrote, “Can’t get a part I need to get my van fixed.”
One person told News 5 that they went to purchase a vehicle and reached an agreement but couldn’t fully close the deal and had to leave the lot without their new ride.
Last Week, Lou Vitantonio, president of the Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers’ Association, told News 5 that impacted dealers are staying open and trying to find workarounds.
He said he’s telling dealerships, ‘Hey, listen, go back to paper. Let’s document very, very closely,’ whatever it is that’s being done… then at some point, if the systems are back up, we’ll have to input them,” Vitantonio said.
Todd said what’s happening with CDK Global naturally forces everyone to look more closely at their systems and security.
While his dealership isn’t a CDK Global client, his employees have encountered a few hiccups regarding dealer trades with automobile dealerships that use CDK Global software.
“So if you're interested in a color option package that we don't have here, we call dealerships across town (and) ask if we could have their car,” Todd said. “Then they pick a car off of our lot and we swap. But if you can't do the accounting side of it nobody wants to stack up all these trades. So, they would just rather not trade until this gets fixed."
Todd hopes there’s an end in sight to the problems so operations in his industry can get back on track.
“Fourth of July right around the corner,” Todd said. “It’s a bad time to be slowed down.”
