Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack Costs British Economy $2.5 Billion: Widespread Impact Across 5,000 Organizations

Jaguar Land Rover reportedly suffered losses of approximately 50 million pounds weekly due to the production shutdown.

London:

According to a report released on Wednesday by an independent cybersecurity organization, the August cyberattack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors, inflicted an estimated 1.9 billion pounds ($2.55 billion) in damage to the British economy and impacted over 5,000 organizations across the country.

The assessment was conducted by the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC), an independent, not-for-profit entity comprised of industry experts, including the former director of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The report indicated that economic losses could potentially increase if unexpected delays occur in restoring JLR's manufacturing output to pre-attack levels.

"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," stated the CMC report.

JLR began resuming its manufacturing operations earlier this month following an almost six-week production halt caused by the cyberattack. The luxury vehicle manufacturer operates three factories in Britain, collectively producing approximately 1,000 vehicles daily.

This attack represents one of several high-profile cyberbreaches affecting major British corporations this year. Retailer Marks & Spencer incurred losses of about 300 million pounds (approximately $400 million) after an April breach forced its online services offline for two months.

Analysts estimated that JLR was losing around 50 million pounds weekly due to the manufacturing shutdown. In late September, the British government provided the automaker with a 1.5 billion pound loan guarantee to help support its supplier network.

The CMC, which receives funding from the insurance industry and categorizes the financial impact of major cybersecurity incidents affecting British businesses, classified the JLR hack as a Category 3 systemic event on a five-point scale.

According to the report, the CMC's estimate "reflects the substantial disruption to JLR's manufacturing, to its multi-tier manufacturing supply chain, and to downstream organisations including dealerships."