Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest carmaker, said its production would remain halted until at least Oct. 1 because of a cyberattack that has disabled many of its systems for weeks.
The attack, which targeted the company’s retail and production operations, was one of several cyber and ransomware attacks that have disrupted an array of European businesses, including hospitals, charities, and, most recently, airports in Brussels, Berlin, Dublin, and London.
The attacks have been costly, with organizations sometimes requiring months to restore their processes online. Marks & Spencer, one of Britain’s largest retailers, was hit in April by a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack that the company said would cost it about 300 million pounds ($405 million) in lost profits this year.
Jaguar Land Rover, which makes luxury cars that include Jaguars, Defenders, and Range Rovers, has not produced a car in more than three weeks since the attack, which it acknowledged publicly in early September.
It had initially told employees, suppliers, and partners that the pause in production would end on Wednesday. In a statement on Tuesday, it said that it had extended the pause and was working to ensure it could safely restart production.
“We have made this decision to give clarity for the coming week as we build the timeline for the phased restart of our operations and continue our investigation,” the statement said.
Neither Jaguar Land Rover nor British government officials have said who is suspected of having carried out the attack.
Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer, said government officials were working closely with Jaguar Land Rover. “There is a wider issue here, of ensuring that foreign states, including Russia, cannot bring down production, or flights, or public services in Britain,” she said in an interview with ITV News. “It is a new and growing threat.”
The Trump administration had imposed 27.5% tariffs on cars imported from Britain to the United States, in what would have caused particularly acute pain for Britain’s flagging auto industry. Jaguar Land Rover briefly paused car shipments to the United States in April because of the uncertainty caused by tariffs.
But following the introduction of reduced 10% tariffs on car exports from Britain to the United States, car sales from Britain to the United States rose in July, after three consecutive months of decline, according to data from Britain’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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