Arnold Clark Automobiles

History

2022: IT systems shut down after cyber attacks

On December 23, 2022, it became known about "suspicious activity" in the computer network of the Scottish company Arnold Clark Automobiles, the largest car dealer in Europe.

According to Cybernews, citing unnamed information security experts, Arnold Clark's IT infrastructure has undergone a massive hacker attack. Corporate email, many services and even telephone communications were disrupted. As a protective measure, the company decided to completely shut down its computer network. This led to a lack of Internet access in dealerships and a violation of communication with third parties. In addition, the car booking service suffered. However, Arnold Clark says there is no evidence of customer identity theft.

One Arnold Clark Automobiles dealerships

Our priority was to protect the personal data of our customers, our systems and services of our third-party partners. Despite the fact that this was achieved, the attack caused a temporary failure in our work and, unfortunately, problems for our customers, the company said in a statement.

It is noted that the attackers destroyed a number of Arnold Clark resources. The company restores information and its services. Whether the attack was related to a ransomware program is not clear. Customer service had to be transferred to temporary services. Arnold Clark could not immediately involve its own IT executive in solving the problem, since he was on vacation in Italy. Therefore, I had to turn to third-party experts in the field of computer security.

External security partners are now conducting extensive verification of our entire IT network and infrastructure, which is a very difficult task. They give recommendations to our IT group on re-enabling the network and systems in a secure and secure mode, the company noted.[1]

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