Jaguar Land Rover has told its factory staff to stay home until at least next Tuesday as it continues to deal with the effects of a cyber-attack.
The carmaker has had to stop production at its factories in Merseyside and the West Midlands after hackers infiltrated its systems.
Production workers in Halewood on Merseyside and Solihull in the West Midlands and at JLR’s engine manufacturing site in Wolverhampton have been told to stay away until 9 September, in a tacit admission that a swift resolution to the problem is unlikely.
The UK’s biggest car manufacturer, owned by India’s Tata group, halted production at the sites after discovering the breach on Sunday. It has since said its global operations had been “severely disrupted” by the cyber incident.
While there was no evidence that any customer data had been taken, JLR said it had decided to shut down its systems to mitigate the impact of the hack.
The cyber-attack, which follows a spate of similar attacks across the UK retail sector, could take considerable time to resolve, given the experience this year of companies such as Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods.
It is another blow for JLR, which was already struggling with the impact of US tariffs on the sector and weak consumer confidence.
The hack has disrupted sales, with thousands of customers awaiting new vehicles, at one of the busiest times of the year for the market. September is one of the two months when new registration plates are released in the UK. Repairs are also affected, with dealerships and garages unable to order new parts online.
On Wednesday, a group of English-speaking hackers linked to the retail hacks claimed responsibility for the JLR attack. Screenshots were posted on a Telegram channel amalgamating the names of hacking groups known as Scattered Spider, Lapsus$ and ShinyHunters.
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Scattered Spider has been blamed for the UK cyber-attacks, which forced M&S to stop online sales for six weeks and cost the retailer an estimated £300m.
A JLR spokesperson said the company was “aware of the claims and continues to investigate”.
The carmaker, which has its headquarters in Coventry, employs 32,800 people in the UK.