Production workers at car giant’s Halewood plant have been told to stay away from work until at least Tuesday
The Jaguar Land Rover site at Halewood(Image: LIVERPOOL ECHO)
Jaguar Land Rover has apologised and said it will “continue to work around the clock” to reopen its production operations after workers were told to stay away from work last week. The car manufacturing giant continues to reel from a huge global crisis after experiencing a cyber attack.
The ECHO was the first to reveal on Tuesday that the global company had been forced to shut down its production operations on Monday, September 1, with production staff telling the ECHO they received an email at 4.30am telling them not to come in to work. Another shift was sent home from the Halewood plant.
Staff based at Halewood and across JLR’s production sites in the UK and around the world have remained stood down today as the company continues to grapple with the impact of the attack. The ECHO was told the shut down will continue until at least next Tuesday.
A spokesperson for JLR today (Saturday, September 6) said it “continues to work around the clock” to restart the company’s global applications in a “controlled and safe manner following the recent cyber incident”.
It said it’s working with third-party cybersecurity specialists and alongside law enforcement.
JLR added: “We want to thank all our customers, partners, suppliers and colleagues for their patience and support. We are very sorry for the disruption this incident has caused. Our retail partners remain open and we will continue to provide further updates.”
A group of young hackers who targeted Marks and Spencer and other British brands in recent cyber hacks have reportedly claimed responsibility for the JLR attack.
The Jaguar Land Rover site at Halewood.(Image: LIVERPOOL ECHO)
The BBC reported on Wednesday that the gang has bragged about the hack on instant messaging platform Telegram and shared screenshots purporting to be from the car manufacturer’s internal IT system.
It comes after a spate of cyber attacks across the UK retail sector earlier this year, with M&S, the Co-op and Harrods among those worst affected.
The gang made the claims on a Telegram channel which is called Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, a combination of three English language speaking, hacking groups known as Scattered Spider, Lapsus$ and ShinyHunters.
According to the BBC, in private text conversations one of the criminals, who says they are the spokesperson for the group, claimed they are trying to extort money from the car manufacturer.
A spokesperson for JLR said on Wednesday: “We are aware of the claims relating to the recent cyber incident and we are continuing to actively investigate.”
A spokeswoman for the National Crime Agency said: “We are aware of an incident impacting Jaguar Land Rover and are working with partners to better understand its impact.”