Connecticut car dealerships hit by cyberattack

MILFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — For the seventh consecutive day, car dealerships, parts suppliers and repair shops are dealing with a nationwide outage of a widely used software that was caused by a cyberattack.

CDK, a software used by 15,000 retail dealerships nationwide, experienced back-to-back cyberattacks last week. It caused the company to shut down all of its systems as an abundance of caution, but the issue has still not been resolved.

For dealerships like Napoli Nissan in Milford, the last seven days have been a time warp. 

“We’re going 65-70 years back in time,” said Brendan Camilleri, the general sales manager. “Everything is all hand-written. Invoices are hand-written…everything from service to sales.”

Camilleri said the software is used for everything from purchasing to repairs. He added while business continues while the system down, the work is piling up.

“Over the last several years, we’ve automated everything to make a buyer’s experience much more smoother, and without having software to back us up makes it incredibly difficult,” he said, adding it has also caused delays for customers purchasing cars. 

Service shops like Turnpike Motors in Newington said it is also affected by the cyberattack, which is causing delays in getting parts from its suppliers.

“If we call up and ask them if there’s a part they may have showed it in the inventory at one point, and they have to get out of the chair and go to the shelf to see if they actually have it,” Doug Fernandez, who owns Turnpike Motors, said. “All their inventory is frozen. They can’t keep count of it. They don’t know if they have one or 10 of anything right now.”

Fernandez and Camilleri both said they’ve received no indication as to when the software could be back online, but added the implications could have a ripple effect for months.  

“It’s just messy,” Fernandez said. “The worst part about it is there’s a financial hit because you’re going to have to quote stuff out to deliver things and you’re going to have the wrong information and as the businesses we’re going to have to pay for those differences. And there’s just going to be a bunch of invoices and things that get lost.” 

CDK Global did not respond to News 8’s request for comment.