The automotive industry is built for motion. Vehicles move, supply chains move, production lines never stop moving or at least, they’re not supposed to.
Yet over the past year, some of the sector’s biggest names have found themselves brought to a standstill, not by parts shortages or labour issues, but by ransomware. The attack on CDK Global, which paralysed more than 15,000 North American dealerships, followed by the prolonged operational and financial fallout from Jaguar Land Rover’s 2025 cyber incident, underscores one stark reality: automotive has become a prime target for cybercriminals.
For CTOs, CIOs, and IT leaders, this isn’t just a security problem. It’s a direct threat to revenue, reputation, and strategic momentum.
Two Incidents, One Warning
At first glance, CDK Global and Jaguar Land Rover operate on different planes of the automotive ecosystem. CDK Global is a software provider embedded into thousands of dealerships’ daily operations, while Jaguar Land Rover is a global manufacturer with complex plants, suppliers, and logistics networks.
Yet when ransomware struck, the outcomes were strikingly similar.
CDK Global was forced to shut down its systems entirely after an attack attributed to the BlackSuit ransomware gang. Dealerships across North America lost access to customer records, sales systems, servicing schedules, financing tools, even the ability to print repair orders. Overnight, highly digital operations reverted to pen and paper.
Jaguar Land Rover’s experience was different in execution but similar in impact. A cyberattack in late summer 2025 halted global production and rippled through its supply chain. While factories resumed operations by October, the financial consequences continued to be felt months later. JLR’s quarterly revenue fell 24% to £4.5 billion, resulting in a £310 million loss compared to the previous year’s profit, and year-to-date losses reached £444 million. Even after production restarted, EBIT margins collapsed from around 8% to just 2%.
Different targets, different systems, same lesson: cyber incidents don’t just disrupt operations, they reshape business performance for months, sometimes years.
Why Automotive Is a High-Value Target
Ransomware attackers follow three things: money, leverage, and urgency. Automotive offers all three.
First, downtime is expensive. Every halted production line or silent dealership network creates immediate financial pressure. Attackers know this and use it to their advantage.
Second, the sector’s supply chains are highly interconnected. Tier 1, 2, and 3 suppliers, software vendors, logistics providers, and dealers all rely on each other. A single compromised vendor can cascade disruption across multiple organisations, as CDK Global demonstrated.
Third, legacy systems are everywhere. While vehicles are becoming software-defined, many back-office, plant, and dealer systems are decades old, are difficult to patch, hard to segment, and often lacking visibility. Attackers only need one weak link.
Finally, ransomware has evolved. Double extortion, exfiltrating data before encrypting it, means attackers are not just halting operations; they’re holding customer data, supplier contracts, IP, and even vehicle software hostage. The stakes are operational, reputational, and regulatory all at once.
The Cost Isn’t Just Technical
One of the most dangerous misconceptions about ransomware is that recovery ends when systems come back online.
Jaguar Land Rover proves otherwise. Even after production restarted, delayed deliveries, strained supplier relationships, leadership distraction during a CEO transition, and a prolonged financial drag hampered the company’s performance. CDK Global faced a different challenge – rebuilding trust. When a platform is central to daily operations, availability equals credibility, and regaining it can take months.
In both cases, the long-term fallout often exceeds the initial operational disruption.
From Security to Resilience
Most automotive organisations already invest heavily in firewalls, endpoint protection, multi-factor authentication, and SOC monitoring. Yet ransomware continues to succeed.
The difference today is no longer whether an organisation can prevent an attack, but how quickly it can recover.
Key questions now sit at the executive table:
- How fast can critical systems be restored?
- Can leadership trust the recovery is complete?
- How much operational damage can be avoided without paying ransom?
These aren’t IT questions, they are strategic business questions.
Building a Resilient Automotive Business
Automotive leaders must shift from asking “Can we prevent this?” to “Can we survive it?”. That requires:
- Immutable, ransomware-resistant backups that attackers can’t encrypt or delete
- Rapid recovery architectures that restore entire environments across plants, dealer networks, and supply chains
- Regularly tested recovery plans that work under real-world pressure
- Segmentation and containment to limit the blast radius of any incident
In a sector where downtime equates to lost vehicles, lost revenue, and lost trust, recovery speed and certainty have become competitive differentiators.
Where vXtream Makes the Difference
vXtream supports automotive organisations by turning ransomware recovery from a gamble into a predictable outcome. Through immutable backup structures, rapid recovery processes, and protection across hybrid and legacy environments, vXtream allows IT and security leaders to answer the toughest question:
“If this happens tomorrow, can we recover? without paying?”
This capability transforms ransomware from an existential threat into a manageable risk, enabling organisations to protect reputation, maintain operations, and focus on growth, even under attack.
Final Thought: Resilience Is the New Horsepower
Automotive has always measured performance in tangible ways – speed, efficiency, reliability. In today’s digital-first world, cyber resilience deserves a seat on that dashboard.
CDK Global and Jaguar Land Rover aren’t examples of weak security. They are reminders that even mature, well-resourced organisations can be disrupted. The differentiator now is who can absorb the impact and keep the business moving.
For CTOs, CIOs, and IT leaders, the question is clear: in a sector defined by momentum, recovery may be the most important system of all.
If you want to take the next step, and discuss any aspect of cyber security with us, then please reach out for a chat.
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Car Photo by Fabian Jones on Unsplash
If you found this article of interest, you may enjoy this: Cyber Risk: Why the UK Government Wants Businesses to Keep Pen and Paper Ready
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