Car dealership operations are once again facing technical difficulties following the Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage that halted global IT operations.
First reported by Automotive News, several car retailers confirmed to have either reduced or halted operations following the Windows computers outage, many of which just starting to recover from the outage that impacted over 15,000 dealers in North America last month.
(Photo : Carl Court/Getty Images)
Among the confirmed impacted car dealers were Penske Automotive Group, Lithia Motors, and Continental North America, which holds several franchise locations in the US and Canada.
Even CDK Global, the IT service targeted by the cyberattack in late June, confirmed that it was also affected by the recent global outage.
However, unlike the CDK Global cybersecurity incident, the auto retailers claimed the server disruption had been "minimal" with others already "getting closer to more stability."
Also Read: Over 15,000 Car Dealers Suffer Computer Outages in US, Canada
IT Outages Continue to Impact US Car Retail Market
With many car retail services impacted, the car retail market's sales drop can be expected to continue as businesses struggle to sell their cars and services to more customers.
Experts earlier projected that the industry could recuperate most of its losses from the cyberattack within a month.
However, the recent incident might just have further extended the recovery period.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz already clarified that the outage is not due to a "cybersecurity incident," but instead an antivirus update bug on Windows computers.
CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…
— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024
The company is already working on the technical update to resolve the issue, although Kurtz did not give an exact timeline for when the problem will be completely fixed.
Related Article: Why Do More Online Platforms Suffer Global Outages Today?
Potential Lawsuit Against CrowdStrike
Due to the scale of the IT outage, many people already projected that a similar situation with CDK Global could happen to CrowdStrike as multiple businesses file lawsuits against the company for the global service disruption.
Even now, more car retailers are suing CDK Global for failing to prevent the cyberattack days after most of its services have already been restored.
With CrowdStrike providing its services to millions of Windows computers, the legal action is expected to be bigger as well.
