LONGVIEW, Texas — Relief could come soon to car dealerships struggling with a major system shut down including here in East Texas. That's because CDK Global, which provides software to roughly 15,000 dealerships across North America, says it should be back up and running by Thursday.
The news comes nearly two weeks after a cyberattack forced its systems offline, impacting everything from service repairs, payroll to delivering parts and car purchases.
Greg Michaelson, president of Toyota of Longview, has been selling cars for over 40 years and in those years of experience, he's never seen anything like this.
"We’ve been flying dark for two weeks," Michaelson said.
That’s because CDK Global, a database thousands of car dealerships across the country use, including Toyota of Longview was hit by a cyberattack.
"Including the accounting, as (little) as check printing, and payroll. It’s been a nightmare," he said.
This cyberattack has changed how they’re selling cars. They're having to use innovative ways and old techniques to get cars off the lot, such as social media and making phone calls.
Customers are having to come into the store to buy a car instead of purchasing them online.
"A great number of the younger customers are used to doing everything through their keyboard. We are just unable to reach out to them," Michaelson said.
Thankfully, Michaelson said they haven’t seen a full impact of this cyberattack because they use two different systems for their day-to-day operations.
"We do have a split responsibility and that’s what’s carried us through," Michaelson said.
Even though some operations are still going on at the dealership, Michaelson said this nationwide cyberattack has put a dent in sales for the month of June for his store.
"We’re about 35 cars short for the month of June," he said.
As they head into the new month, Michaelson hopes they can recover from the financial hit these last few weeks as they "have a lot of catching up to do on the sales side."