Financial Loss Tied to the Hack Estimated at 1.9B Pounds
The hack of Jaguar Land Rover will likely cost the British economy 1.9 billion pounds, making it the single most expensive cyber incident to have occurred in the United Kingdom.
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The estimate comes from non-profit Cyber Monitoring Center, which earlier this year began publishing assessments of British cybersecurity incidents. Its financial model pegged possible losses between 1.6 billion and 2.1 billion pounds. That number could go up if hackers damaged the operational technology controlling assembly lines, the center warned.
The estimate “reflects the substantial disruption to JLR’s manufacturing, to its multi-tier manufacturing supply chain and to downstream organizations including dealerships,” the center said. More than 5,000 British firms felt losses, it said.
“This incident looks by some distance to be the single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the U.K.,” said Ciaran Martin, chair of the center’s technical committee and the head of the U.K. National Cyber Security Center. “Every organization needs to identify the networks that matter to them, how to protect them better and plan for how they’d cope if the network gets disrupted,” he added.
A cybercrime group consisting principally of Western adolescent hackers with the moniker “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters” took responsibility for the hack (see: Jaguar Land Rover Hackers Stole Data).
The Tata Motors-owned luxury car maker shut down assembly lines in the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Brazil and India after a cyberattack was detected on Sept 1. The incident affected car manufacturing and dealerships, with operations resuming earlier this month.
The disruption, which came at the start of the fall car-selling season, affected sales of its Land Rover models. Jaguar had already suspended production in 2024 as the company sought to retool as a luxury electric vehicle brand.
The government in September guaranteed a 1.5 billion pound loan, which the company must repay in five years (see: UK Government Backs Jaguar Land Rover With 1.5B Pound Loan).
Jaguar Land Rover did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Risks posed by cyber incidents is shifting away from data breaches to operational disruptions, the center also warned. “Corporate governance and business regulation frameworks should be designed to promote the building of resilient operations as well as promoting data security,” it recommended.