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Dealerships turned to manual processes because cyberattacks in June 2024 disrupted CDK Global’s dealer management systems (DMS), software used for core work such as sales, service, inventory, accounting and customer records. Some stores kept serving customers with alternative processes, including pen and paper. The operational outage was confirmed; whether customer or vendor data had been accessed or stolen was unknown in contemporaneous statements.
What happened to CDK Global?
CDK Global provides dealer management software that supports day-to-day dealership operations. TechCrunch reported that its tools helped dealers manage customer appointments, vehicle records and other information; AutoCanada described its DMS as supporting sales, service, inventory and accounting.
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On June 19, 2024, CDK told customers that an additional incident had occurred late that day. A company spokesperson confirmed that CDK shut down most systems as a precaution while it assessed the impact. In its June 20 report, TechCrunch said CDK had not described the nature of the original attack, and the connection between the two incidents was unclear. The cited reporting does not establish an official CDK confirmation of ransomware.
CDK spokesperson Lisa Finney said the company was working with third-party experts to assess the impact and restore services. TechCrunch reported the June 20 statement and incident sequence.
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Why did dealerships use pen and paper?
When a dealership’s DMS is unavailable, staff may lose access to connected workflows for customer appointments and records, vehicle inventory, sales transactions, service work and accounting. A store can still open its doors, but routine tasks that normally pass through the software have to be handled another way. Manual records and other alternative processes let some businesses continue serving customers while CDK systems were offline.
The examples reported at the time show different fallback approaches, not a complete count of dealerships using paper or a common measure of how severely each was affected.
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| Dealer group or example | Business functions and fallback | Reported status and date |
|---|---|---|
| AutoCanada | Its DMS supported sales, service, inventory and accounting. The company said its dealerships remained open and continued selling and servicing vehicles through manual and alternative processes. | June 24, 2024: operating through workarounds while the incident was being assessed. AutoCanada’s update. |
| Group 1 Automotive | The company said its U.S. dealerships continued business using alternative processes after isolating systems from CDK. | June 24, 2024: U.S. operations continued through alternatives; Group 1 also said its U.K. operations were unaffected. Group 1’s statement via Nasdaq. |
| Ford and Stellantis dealers cited by Global News | Some affected dealerships used pen and paper for deals and other processes. | Reported July 2, 2024, during the restoration period; the report did not provide a comprehensive count of paper-based operations. Global News’ restoration update. |
These disclosures do not identify a particular form, device or other physical product as necessary for the fallback. “Pen and paper” describes one reported workaround, alongside other manual or alternative processes.
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Yes. CDK’s service disruption affected dealerships that depended on its systems, and contemporaneous reporting described the impact across North America. Global News reported that Ford and Stellantis dealers were among those affected. AutoCanada and Group 1 each described how their own dealerships responded, but the cited sources do not establish a dealership-by-dealership impact count. They also do not support ranking dealer groups by financial or operational loss.
Was customer data stolen in the CDK outage?
That was unknown in the statements and reporting cited at the time. On June 24, AutoCanada said the incident’s full scope was not yet known, including whether a threat actor had accessed customer or vendor data maintained by CDK. TechCrunch reported on June 20 that CDK had not answered questions about possible data exfiltration.
Those statements establish uncertainty, not proof that data was stolen and not confirmation that no data was accessed. AutoCanada’s June 24 disclosure and TechCrunch’s June 20 report describe what was publicly known then.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How did service restoration proceed?
Restoration was gradual. On July 2, 2024, Global News reported CDK’s statement that most system connections were live. CDK anticipated full restoration by late Wednesday or early Thursday. That was the company’s forecast as reported on July 2, not an independently audited confirmation of the exact completion time. These dated updates describe the 2024 incident and should not be read as a statement about CDK’s current system status.
What the incident says about dealership cyber risk
CDK’s December 30, 2024 summary of its dealership personnel and market research reported that 35% of auto dealers experienced a cyberattack or incident in 2024, and 92% said it resulted in a negative financial or operational impact. These are CDK’s survey findings, not independently established incident counts and not measurements of the CDK outage alone. CDK’s 2024 dealership cybersecurity summary provides that context.
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