A cyberattack targeting Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), owned by India’s Tata Motors, has caused an estimated £1.9 billion ($2.55 billion) hit to the British economy and impacted over 5,000 organisations, according to a report released on Wednesday by the independent Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC).
The CMC, a non-profit group made up of cybersecurity experts including the former head of Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, said the financial losses could increase if the automaker faces further delays in restoring full production following the August breach. “This incident appears to be the most economically damaging cyber event to hit the UK, with the vast majority of the financial impact being due to the loss of manufacturing output at JLR and its suppliers,” the report said.
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JLR, which operates three factories in Britain producing around 1,000 vehicles daily, began gradually resuming production earlier this month after an almost six-week shutdown caused by the hack. Analysts estimated that the disruption was costing the company about £50 million per week. The British government extended a £1.5 billion loan guarantee in late September to help JLR support its suppliers during the recovery.
The CMC categorised the attack as a Category 3 systemic event on its five-level scale, citing “substantial disruption to JLR’s manufacturing, to its multi-tier manufacturing supply chain, and to downstream organisations including dealerships.” The report added that the scale of the damage made it one of the most severe cyber incidents to affect a British company in recent years.
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JLR declined to comment on the findings, with financial results expected to be released in November. The breach is part of a broader wave of cyberattacks on UK firms this year, including one on retailer Marks & Spencer in April that caused an estimated £300 million in losses after two months of online service disruption.