Cybercrime
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Fraud Management & Cybercrime
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Geo Focus: The United Kingdom
Manufacturer Resumes Operations at Wolverhampton Unit

British car maker Jaguar Land Rover began on Monday a phased restoration of operations following a month of cyberattack-induced idleness.
See Also: Strengthening Your Security Program With Open API
The Tata Motors-owned luxury car maker shut down assembly lines in the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Brazil and India after a Sept. 1 cyberattack that impacted car manufacturing and dealerships. The company has been unable to book sales since September, likely costing it millions of pounds a day (see: Cyberattack Disrupts Jaguar Land Rover Assembly Line).
The company is set to resume operation at its Wolverhampton engine factory on Monday, with other impacted assembly lines resuming operations in a phased manner, the BBC reported.
Fears of large-scale job losses at the car manufacturer and its extensive network of suppliers led the U.K. government to guarantee a 1.5 billion pound loan. The company must pay back the amount in five years (see: UK Government Backs Jaguar Land Rover With 1.5B Pound Loan).
Workers’ union Unite and industry stakeholders welcomed the aid package but said the assistance may be insufficient for a full-scale recovery, particularly among smaller suppliers.
The Confederation of British Metalforming on Thursday said that the loan money has yet to reach suppliers past the first tier of Jaguar Land Rover contractors.
“JLR is rightly focused on getting payments through to their first-tier suppliers, and its best we allow them to complete that process,” CBM President Stephen Morley said. “Our focus now must be on ensuring that second-tier and smaller suppliers in the chain are supported, so the whole framework is in place when production restarts.”
Hacking-induced reverberations to the supply chain has also affected British car maker Aston Martin, which on Monday reported a decline in projected wholesale volumes for the third quarter, citing a “recent cyber incident at a major U.K. automotive manufacturer” as one of the contributing factors to the slump.
The spillover effect is a lesson for the government to “treat industrial cyber resilience as national economic policy,” said Lucas Kello, associate professor of international relations at the University of Oxford.
“Public support and procurement should be tied to clear security conditions and rapid incident reporting, then locked into law and regulations across supply chains. To avoid moral hazard, any state guarantee must come with firm security requirements; otherwise, the government is simply underwriting weak controls,” he wrote in an email.
Jaguar Land Rover hasn’t disclosed the details of the hack. A cybercrime group consisting mainly of Western adolescent hackers using the moniker “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters” claimed responsibility. The group announced its putative closure in mid-September to skepticism (see: Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters Announces Closure).