The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover is believed to have been the “most financially damaging” in UK history, with an estimated cost of £1.9 billion, a security body has said.
The attack, which occurred in late August, forced a halt to production across the automaker’s global operations for more than a month, and it has yet to return to full capacity.
Research from the Cyber Monitoring Center (CMC) suggests around 5,000 businesses across the UK have been affected by the fallout.
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The independent body estimated that more than half of the total financial losses would be felt by JLR itself, through lost production, sales and money spent to bring its systems back online.
The company revealed help to suppliers earlier this month, but only with those it deals with directly, with companies further downstream suggesting they remain exposed due to interruptions in their own production and billing workflow.
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Ciaran Martin, chair of the CMC technical committee, said: “At a cost of almost £2 billion, this incident appears to have been by far the most financially damaging cyber event ever to happen in the UK.
“This should give us all pause and reflection, and then – as the National Cybersecurity Center said forcefully last week – it’s time to act.
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“Every organization needs to identify the networks that matter to them and how to better protect them, then plan how they would respond if the network was disrupted. »
JLR, which declined to comment on the report, has yet to estimate the cost itself.
It is expected to release its financial results next month.
Marks and Spencer – also a victim of cybercriminals this year – said its estimated £300 million impact would be largely eradicated by insurance payouts.