Jaguar Land Rover fell victim to a cyberattack involving data theft in early September and is still experiencing issues as a result. Production has been halted for almost a month.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), operating as a single company since Ford’s acquisition in 2008, has been hit by a cyberattack. An earlier statement indicated that the attack significantly disrupted the manufacturer’s production. The automaker has now shared that “some data” was indeed stolen, after initially claiming that no data had been compromised.
Immediate Action Taken
“We took immediate action to mitigate the impact by proactively shutting down our systems,” JLR wrote. “We are now working quickly to restart our global applications in a controlled manner.” JLR had to shut down various systems, including the production site in Solihull, England. Popular models such as Land Rover Discovery, Range Rover, and Range Rover Sport are manufactured there. Production has been halted since August 31.
JLR has been working to restart production since the attack. A group of cybercriminals calling themselves “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters” reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on Telegram, according to BleepingComputer. Screenshots of JLR’s internal SAP systems with installed malware were allegedly shared in that Telegram group. This is believed to be the same group of cybercriminals behind the attacks on Salesforce.
Impact Greater than Initially Thought
Weekend attacks are popular because hackers know that companies can respond less quickly to stop the cyberattack, writes Bleeping Computer. Since the company initially communicated that no data was stolen, the impact seemed manageable.
Now the situation is different. It’s not yet clear what kind of data is involved and how much data has been exposed. In recent cyberattacks at Orange and Salesforce, hundreds of thousands of customer records were stolen.
50 Million Pounds per Week
The cyberattack has halted production at the factory in the United Kingdom. The automaker announced on September 16 that it would have to suspend its operations for at least another week, until September 24. According to the official statement, the ‘controlled restart of global operations’ takes time. Meanwhile, production remains halted, but a new statement informs us that JLR is “taking steps towards recovery and the resumption of production of our world-class vehicles.”
The BBC estimates that the production backlog will cost Jaguar Land Rover at least fifty million pounds per week (57 million euros) as long as the downtime persists. In a good week, the British factory produces up to a thousand luxury cars. This is also bad news for suppliers who share in the financial impact, reports the BBC. The Telegraph estimates the financial damage for Jaguar Land Rover at 72 million pounds per week (83 million euros). Therefore, the company is now receiving a government-backed loan of 2 billion pounds (1.7 million euros), according to The Register.
This article originally appeared on September 4, 2025, and was updated with the latest information.