Over 15,000 car dealerships have to halt operations on Wednesday following reports of a "cyber incident" at US and Canadian stores.
CDK Global, the software provider to auto dealers in North America, told CNN that the service outage was "out of an abundance of caution and concern for our customers."
CDK Global servers house several critical details on car dealer operations, including customer schedules, electronic signatures, and messaging tools.
The company did not disclose the exact nature of the "cyber incident" but said it has already "executed extensive testing and consulted with external third-party experts."
As of writing, all affected car dealers have resumed operation on Wednesday afternoon, several hours since the incident was first noted at 2 a.m. Eastern time.
US, Canada Suffers from Cyberattack Surge
The "cyber incident" in CDK Global and the car dealerships only follow the growing trend of cyberattacks reported across tech firms in the US and Canada.
Financially-motivated cybercrimes, particularly ransomware attacks, have been noted to surge since last year as hackers and threat actors try to steal corporate data to bargain with potential buyers.
A big cause of the uptick in ransomware attacks can be pointed to the return of the hacker forum board, "BreachForums," where users can auction stolen company data for millions of dollars.
One recent case was the ransomware attack on Ticketmaster that exposed over 560 million customer data, including personal information and credit card details, to hackers.
Rise in Cyberattacks Could Impact US, Canada Economy
If cyberattacks continue to rise across North America, experts fear that the service disruption could have a significant impact on the countries' economic stability.
According to the International Monetary Fund, such attacks could potentially cause "funding problems for companies and even jeopardize their solvency," hurting the country's economic growth in the long run.
The IMF projected that total industry losses could soon mount up to billions of dollars if the impact of more aggressive cyberattacks remains unmitigated.
Related Article: Increased Cyberattacks in Financial Sectors May Cause Economic Instability, IMF Warns
