Jaguar Land Rover will receive a loan of about 1.75 billion euros converted from the UK government. The money is intended to mitigate financial problems following a recent cyber attack.
The British carmaker was hit by a cyber attack on 2 September. The company halted production at several plants in response. It thus wanted to contain the impact of the cyber attack. Since then, both Jaguar Land Rover's sales and production operations have been severely disrupted. It is unclear who is responsible for the cyber attack.
Impact is huge
The financial impact of the cyber-attack is significant. For instance, many of the British company's 33,000 employees are still sitting at home. The group, part of India's Tata Motors, announced last week that production at three UK plants would be halted at least until 1 October.
Sky News recently reported that Jaguar Land Rover is losing tens of millions of pounds a day in sales due to the cyber attack. The total cost is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of pounds, reports The Guardian.
Supply chain also affected
Jaguar Land Rover's supply chain has also been affected by the cyber attack. In total, some 104,000 Britons work in this supply chain, which includes a good number of smaller companies.
Several companies outside the UK have also been affected. For example, German exhaust system supplier Eberspächer previously reported being affected by the problems at Jaguar Land Rover. The same applies to Slovakia's Hollen, which focuses on quality control for car parts.
Potential impact of a cyber attack
Cyber attack shows the potential impact of a cyber attack. This is not the first time that a cyber attack has severely disrupted a company's operations in the automotive industry. In 2019, for instance, production at plants of German automotive and defence company Rheinmetall in Brazil, Mexico and the United States (US) was severely disrupted. The loss of turnover was then estimated at around EUR 3 to 4 million per week.
The Rheinmetall Group includes Rheinmetall Automotive and Rheinmetall Defence. Rheinmetall Automotive produces automotive components such as pistons, engine blocks and emission control systems. Rheinmetall Defence, on the other hand, supplies technologies in the field of defence and security.
Production halted at VDL Group
Closer to home, VDL Group was hit by a cyber attack in October 2021, which affected all 107 companies that were part of the group at the time. Production had to be shut down or restricted at several companies. Three quarters of the group's 4,000 employees had to stay home temporarily due to the attack.
Several VDL Group customers also reported to the Eindhovens Dagblad (ED) that they were inconvenienced by the attack on VDL Group. These include Philips, to which it produces parts for medical systems. Another example is ASML, for which VDL produces parts for chip machines.
Manufacturing industry is increasingly vulnerable
Research by IT company Cegeka shows that companies in the manufacturing industry are increasingly vulnerable to serious cyber attacks. Among other things, the manufacturing industry's dependence on the supply chain makes companies an attractive target for cybercriminals, the company reports. As a result, not only the direct financial damage is often significant, but also the indirect ones.
As many as 95 per cent of industrial organisations had experienced a cyber security incident in the past 12 months, Kaspersky's survey of 203 Dutch C-level decision-makers recently showed. Critical sectors such as energy, manufacturing and oil and gas, among others, are increasingly vulnerable due to the use of connected and automated technologies.
Image: Pete Linforth via Pixabay
