By Steven Symes 
Since August 31, Jaguar Land Rover has shut down production and other operations thanks to a major hack of its system. While that initially made the news, you probably just assumed the British automaker has already fixed things and gotten back to the business. But it hasn’t.
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Not only are operations mostly halted inside the company, the timeframe to get everything up and running has been pushed back to September 24. Exactly why it will take about a month for the automaker to get things going again isn’t entirely clear.
What we do know is this is extremely bad for business. After all, JLR wasn’t exactly doing great before this development. But now it can’t make and barely can sell any vehicles.
We know from reports that the hacking organization which infiltrated JLR’s system claims to have stolen all kinds of sensitive data. That surely has posed a challenge and might have something to do with the extended shutdown.
The company made it known back in early September that bringing its system back online is a complicated, long process. The assumption has been that it was being started not long after the story originally broke, but it seems undisclosed complications have extended the timeframe.
One factor which has been disclosed by a JLR spokesperson is the company’s “forensic investigation of the cyber incident” which is apparently ongoing. In the meantime, the automaker is “consider(ing) the different stages of the controlled restart.”
While Jaguar production was already halted as part of the disastrous rebranding strategy, Land Rovers were rolling off the production line until the hack. Perhaps the company hasn’t been too impacted by the halt since car sales for many brands have been slowing some, leading to automakers idling some plants.
Source: ComputerWeekly.com
Image via Jaguar Land Rover
Shawn Henry