Car production remains suspended at Jaguar Land Rover factories – including Halewood in Merseyside – as as the company tells workers to stay at home until at least Tuesday. Tony McDonough reports
It has now been several days since production at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) factories in the UK and overseas ground to a halt after the company fell victim to a cyber attack.
At the weekend production workers at the company were told not to come into work after its IT systems came under attack. JLR usually produces more than 1,000 vehicles a day and the crisis has caused severe disruption to its operations.
Affected UK plants include Halewood in Merseyside, where the business employs around 3,500 people, as well as Solihull, Wolverhampton and Castle Bromwich. Production has also been suspended in Slovakia, China, India and Brazil. Workers have now been told to stay at home until at least Tuesday
JLR has said it is working on a “controlled restart” of its systems. And the disruption is not just to production. The shutdown has also affected its ability to order parts, book shipments for exports and to register new vehicles with the DVLA.
On Tuesday, a group of hackers believed to be behind the recent cyber attack on Marks & Spencer, went on messaging app Telegram claiming to be behind the JLR incident. They call themselves ‘Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters’.
In a statement to ITV News, JLR said: “At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen, but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted. We are working with law enforcement agencies.”
Auto dealers told the Autocar outlet that they had been unable to register new vehicles on September 1, one of the busiest days of the year for new car registrations.
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JLR’s parent company Tata confirmed the incident in a filing to the Indian stock exchange, referring to it as an “IT security incidence”.
Halewood staff were told: “The leadership team has agreed that production associates will be stood down and will have hours banked in line with the corridor agreement.”
It added that some people with specific skills would still be required to show up for work. They include all salaried, maintenance and staff working in the factory’s tool room.
It has been a troubled year for JLR. In August LBN revealed the wrangle over tariffs in the US had hit quarterly revenues and profits in the three months to June 30.