Imagine the software you use to close deals and pay employees unexpectedly goes down, with no immediate fix in sight. Could your business continue operating, or would you face significant financial losses? Unfortunately, this scenario became a reality for over 15,000 car dealerships in the U.S. and Canada in June when two cyber-attacks targeted CDK Global, a popular industry software provider. These attacks shut down critical systems like sales, financing, and payroll, leaving dealerships to revert to manual processes or temporarily stop business.

What Happened?

The first attack on CDK Global occurred on June 18. In response, the company brought their systems offline to investigate. After briefly bringing systems back online the following day, a second attack hit, forcing another shutdown. It’s suspected that the system was brought back online too soon, leading to further compromise. Cybersecurity experts now predict it could be weeks before the system is fully restored.

This incident demonstrates the vulnerabilities of relying solely on digital systems for business operations. When systems go down, essential tasks like processing transactions, paying employees, and managing financial operations come to a halt—potentially resulting in delays and financial losses.

A Wake-Up Call for All Businesses

While CDK Global works to recover, this should serve as a wake-up call for business leaders everywhere. Do you have a business continuity and disaster recovery plan in place? Is it comprehensive, regularly tested, and able to handle large-scale cyber-attacks that disable multiple systems? If not, you may be leaving your business vulnerable to devastating disruptions.

What You Can Do Now

Cyber-attacks can happen to any business, large or small. Even if your cybersecurity solutions are robust, no system is 100% foolproof. It’s critical to have a backup plan in place to ensure you can continue doing business even if an attack disables your systems or a third-party service you rely on.

Take the Next Step: Protect Your Business

We’re offering a FREE Security Risk Assessment to help you prepare. This assessment will do two crucial things:

Identify Vulnerabilities: We’ll thoroughly analyze your network to uncover potential weaknesses and offer solutions to patch them, reducing your chances of falling victim to cyber-attacks.

Review Your Continuity Plan: We’ll help you assess whether your current continuity or recovery plan is strong enough to handle an attack like the one on CDK Global. If not, we’ll help you develop a plan that ensures your business can bounce back quickly.

Call us at 718.412.9196 or click here  to schedule your FREE Security Risk Assessment and protect your business from future cyber threats.