In light of the recent CDK cyber-attack on June 19th, we wanted to take a moment to reach out and offer our support. As CDK works diligently to restore their systems, this situation presents an opportunity for us all to evaluate and enhance our policies and procedures for handling such events. Below are several important steps and considerations to help you navigate this disruption and prepare for potential future incidents.

Operational Recommendations for CDK Users:
  • Record-Keeping: Ensure employees maintain detailed records for every paper transaction processed while the system is unavailable.
  • Accuracy Checks: Review all manual transactions daily for accuracy.
  • Work Log Integrity: Ensure hourly work logs remain accurate. Be aware of potential exploitation by some employees during this period.
  • Compliance: Review federal and state filing requirements affected by the outage and proactively file for extensions if needed.
  • Legal Counsel: Consult with legal counsel to plan a course of action for recouping additional costs incurred during the outage. This includes but is not limited to lost vehicle sales, parts, service revenue, wages for maintaining employee security despite reduced work, and overtime required for workaround procedures.
  • Contract Review: If not already done, review your current agreement with CDK to understand the promised SLAs and penalties for non-compliance.
  • Financial Review: Schedule a comprehensive review with us to compare June’s closing with May, assuming CDK is operational before the end of the month.
  • Assistance: Rest assured; we are ready to assist you in reconciling your accounts to ensure data accuracy once the DMS systems are restored.

Staff Vigilance:

  • Security Awareness: Remind staff to remain vigilant against attacks aimed at gaining access to systems. We have attached sample verbiage you can share with your team.

Caution with Offers:

  • Service Providers: Be cautious of offers from service providers claiming to help during this period. Review such offers carefully before making any commitments.

Disaster Recovery Planning:

  • Backup Systems: Assess your disaster recovery plan to ensure systems are adequately backed up to handle an attack or outage.
  • Cloud Services: Verify that your cloud services are backed up adequately. Using platforms like Azure, AWS, MS 365, or Google does not automatically ensure sufficient backups. Implement solutions like Datto for enhanced protection and data availability.
  • Geographical Redundancy: Ensure your cloud services have geographical redundancy. Failing over to a data center in the same region is not sufficient. Confirm you can fail over to a data center in a different region in case of localized failure.
  • Internet Failover: Consider non-attack-related outages, such as an internet line cut. Ensure you have a failover line in place.
  • Tabletop Exercises: Conduct tabletop exercises with staff to identify vulnerabilities. Everyone should consider the systems and services they use and contemplate their unavailability.

Additional Considerations:

  • Cyber Insurance: Review your cyber insurance policy to understand the coverage and services provided. If you do not currently have a policy, now is the time to obtain coverage.
  • Vendor Contracts: Identify and review contracts with other vendors beyond the DMS to understand their safeguards against attacks and their SLAs.
These are a few steps to help ensure your dealership remains prepared and resilient in the face of potential disruptions. Please do not hesitate to reach out for further assistance or to schedule a consultation.

Written by the team at Rosenfield, your trusted advisors.