More than 500 Mass. auto dealerships affected by nationwide software hack
Auto dealerships across the country are handwriting paper contracts and gauging creditworthiness with guesswork, thanks to a nationwide software outage.
The chaos comes after CDK Global — a software provider to some 15,000 dealers in the US and Canada — suffered a pair of debilitating cyberattacks in recent days.
In Massachusetts alone, more than 500 locations have been crippled by the outages, according to the state’s automobile dealers association.
The barrage began June 19, costing US dealers a burst of business on a federal holiday. CDK has warned that a second incident Thursday is likely to keep its systems down for several more days.
The attacks have had a crippling effect on an industry that topped $1.2 trillion in sales last year just in the US. CDK’s core product — a suite of software tools referred to as a dealership management system, or DMS — underpins virtually every element of auto retailers’ day-to-day business.
