Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/06/cyberattacks-have-forced-thousands-of-car-dealerships-to-paper-for-a-second-day/

Car Dealership Software Outage Leaves Thousands Struggling

A widespread software outage impacting over 15,000 car dealerships across the United States has left them unable to conduct business for a second day. This outage is a result of a single point of failure in the software system used by Reynolds and Reynolds, a major provider of automotive software. The outage has impacted various crucial functions, including customer service, inventory management, and financial transactions, forcing dealerships to rely on manual processes and paper. The software outage highlights the vulnerabilities of relying on a single provider for critical business functions. Dealerships have reported encountering significant disruption, including difficulty in completing sales, managing inventory, and processing payments. The outage has been ongoing since Wednesday, and while Reynolds and Reynolds have stated they are working to resolve the issue, there is no confirmed timeline for its resolution. The company has apologized for the disruption and assured users they are prioritizing a swift resolution. The widespread impact of this outage underscores the importance of redundancy and alternative solutions in critical business systems. It also highlights the significant reliance of car dealerships on software providers for their daily operations. The consequences of such outages can be substantial, affecting both dealership revenue and customer satisfaction.

Summary

"The software outage impacting thousands of car dealerships has caused significant disruption and highlights the vulnerabilities of relying on single providers for critical business functions. It remains to be seen when the outage will be fully resolved, but the incident has underscored the importance of redundancy and alternative solutions in maintaining business continuity."

Updated at: 06.22.2024

software failure
car dealerships
cyber incident
outages
dealership outages

Single point of software failure could hamstring 15K car dealerships for days

"Cyber incident" affecting 15K dealers could mean outages "for several days."