Jaguar Land Rover has been hit by a ‘cyber incident’ that has crippled its manufacturing plants and delivery systems.
It says it took ‘immediate action’ when it became aware of the incident, shutting down systems on Monday – just as it would have been registering new 75 plate cars.
The company – which recently wound down building new Jags ahead of a switch to electric vehicles – sent staff home from the Halewood plant near Liverpool yesterday.
The plant, which produces models such as the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport, remains closed today, according to local media.
Alongside manufacturing, systems including the one used to register new cars are reported to have been crippled by the shutdown.
JLR says today that it does not believe customer data has been stolen – but admits its day-to-day activities have been disrupted.
The firm said in a statement: ‘JLR has been impacted by a cyber incident. We took immediate action to mitigate its impact by proactively shutting down our systems.
‘We are now working at pace to restart our global applications in a controlled manner.
‘At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted.’
The Liverpool Echo reported that the attack was discovered at 4.30am on Monday. The shutdown has continued into today and is likely to continue into tomorrow, the outlet said.
In an update sent to staff, the firm is reported to have said: ‘The leadership team has agreed that production associates will be stood down and will have hours banked in line with the corridor agreement.’
Industry magazine Autocar reported that the system used by Jaguar to register new cars with the government had been taken offline as a result of the shutdown.
The attack could not have come at a worse time for the firm on the first day of brand new 75 plate cars.
Quoting a dealer, the magazine said there had been no estimate given for when systems would come back online.
JLR’s parent company Tata posted a notice to the Indian stock exchange which refers to the issue as an ‘IT security’ incident. It did not give further details.
‘We are working at pace to resolve global IT issues impacting our business. We will provide an update as appropriate in due course,’ the statement, from a company secretary, said.
The incident at Jaguar comes after a number of other British firms were targeted by hackers, causing havoc.
Marks and Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods were targeted by hackers earlier this year. The attacks shut down M&S’s website and affected day-to-day Co-op stores, while Harrods said its systems had been accessed.
A woman and three teenagers were arrested over the incidents in July. M&S chairman Archie Norman later told MPs the attack had been ‘traumatic’ – but refused to say whether it had paid any ransom to have systems restored.
Jaguar Land Rover recently reported that its quarterly profits had almost halved after the US slapped higher import tariffs on cars coming from the UK.
The rates have since been cut from 27.5 per cent to 10 per cent on the first 100,000 British-built cars to ship to the US.
Jaguar is also gearing up for a significant shift in both style and substance after it unveiled a divise rebrand and concept car that critics claimed erased its century-old heritage of British engineering.
Last month, it appointed 54-year-old Tata Motors chief financial officer PB Balaji as the new boss after chief executive Adrian Mardell stepped down after three years at the helm.