Eagers Automotive (ASX: APE), a vehicle dealer in Australia and New Zealand, announced this week that some of its operations have been disrupted as a result of a cyberattack that forced the company to halt trading on the Australian Securities Exchange.
The company announced a pause in trading on December 27 and revealed the next day that the cause was a cybersecurity incident that resulted in an outage of certain IT systems at some operational locations across Australia and New Zealand.
Eagers Automotive said a majority of dealerships remain open and continue to trade, with the incident mainly impacting the company’s ability to finalize transactions for new vehicles that have already been sold and are ready for delivery. Service and parts operations have also been impacted to a certain extent.
“The financial impact of the cyber incident for the year ending 31 December 2023 is expected to primarily relate to the deferral in the recognition of some transactions across the last 5 days of December 2023,” the company stated.
It added, “Although the company’s Statutory Profit Before Tax for the 2023 financial year will be impacted by the cyber incident, predominantly as a result of the deferred sales, the impact is not expected to be material.”
Eagers Automotive is now trying to determine whether any personal information has been compromised as a result of the incident. The car dealer has promised to notify affected individuals if it discovers a data breach.
Eagers Automotive has not shared any information on the attack itself, but, based on its brief description, it may have been a ransomware incident. However, no known ransomware group appears to have taken credit for the attack as of December 29.
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