Eagers Automotive is still scrambling to figure out whether personal information has been compromised in a cyberattack that’s causing headaches across the listed car dealer’s expansive Australian operations.
The company issued a status update to the market on Friday morning saying the incident was causing problems finalising car sales as well as “some aspects” of its service and parts operations.
It is believed several car dealerships in WA rely on Eagers’ IT systems to carry out day-to-day operations and have reverted back to using old processes as a result. There are more than 40 Eagers dealerships in the State, according to its website.
Eagers first confirmed the cyberattack in a statement on Wednesday and locked its shares in a trading halt while it assessed the extent of the damage. Shares resumed trading on Friday and were down about 1.2 per cent in afternoon trade.
It is also expected car sales that have been held up as a result of the cyberattack will impact Eager’s statutory profit — a metric that includes items outside the normal course of business — for the 2023 financial year.
But the company was confident it would still deliver a “record” underlying profit — a metric excluding out-of-the-usual items — for the period.
Eagers said on Friday its primary focus was to determine whether any personal information had been “impacted”.
“This remains under close review. Should our investigations reveal any unauthorised access to personal information, the company will notify affected individuals in accordance with our obligations,” the latest statement read.
“We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience.
“While the majority of our dealerships remain open and continue to trade, the extent of the operational impact of the outage is varied across our regions and business units.
“As the investigation progresses and further facts are established, the company will continue to keep all relevant stakeholders updated.”
HWL Ebsworth, DP World Australia, Medibank and Optus have all been victims of cyberattacks in recent months.