Concerns over impact of JLR cyber attack

Chris Hammett said a lot of associated businesses like his were also affected

A former Aston Martin CEO believes the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has come at the worst possible time and is a "huge problem" for the company.

Andy Palmer said September, when cars are released with new number plates, was "normally the biggest month of the year".

"For JLR to lose the opportunity to make the wholesales during this period will have a devastating effect," he said.

Chris Hammett, a parts manager for Land Rover specialist MM 4x4 near Droitwich, said he could see the disruption going on for weeks and that it was "really going to affect a lot of people".

JLR said its UK factories were expected to remain closed until at least Wednesday after work was disrupted by a cyber attack just over a week ago.

They include plants in Solihull, Wolverhampton and Halewood.

The company shut down its IT systems in response to the attack on 31 August, in order to protect them from damage. However, this caused major disruption.

In a statement on Monday, it said: "We continue to work around the clock to restart our global applications in a controlled and safe manner following the recent cyber incident.

"We are working with third-party cyber-security specialists and alongside law enforcement."

But Warwickshire-born Mr Palmer, who now runs green energy firm Palmer Energy Technology, said: "Car companies rely on continuous production and anything that interrupts production is a problem."

Andy Palmer said the timing could not be worse for JLR

Mr Palmer said he was "surprised it's taken so long" to resume business as usual.

"Normally if your customer data hasn't been hacked it's a little bit easier to get back online," he said.

But he said UK manufacturing was "the most attacked sector over the last four years" and attacks on British businesses UK represented "about 25% of the attacks that are made in Europe".

Mr Palmer said it was "a real risk that particularly big UK companies need to take into account and obviously need to strengthen their protection".

He also said that because a typical car can have about 100,000 parts in it, there would be a big impact on businesses associated with JLR.

Back to printed catalogues

M&M 4x4 proudly claims to be the largest "all under one roof" Land Rover specialist anywhere in the UK.

Mr Hammett said with JLR's systems down he had resorted to finding parts in old printed catalogues.

He has been unable to use JLR's electronic parts system and said: "You can't order any genuine parts if you want those."

"It's affecting quite a few people at the moment," he said.