Car seller Eagers tells customers to be alert for suspicious activity after it came under a cyber attack

The nation’s largest car seller has moved to protect its data after it became the latest victim of a cyber attack and wants customers to be vigilant against suspicious online activity.

The nation’s largest car seller, Eagers Automotive, has told customers to be on alert for suspicious activity as it starts an investigation into a major cyber incident that has disrupted the car dealer’s operations.

Eagers, which has annual revenue of $8.5bn and whose brand portfolio includes BWM, Jaguar, Land Rover, Nissan, MG, Skoda and Volvo, said on Wednesday it was hit by a cyber attack, causing an outage that is disrupting part of the company’s operations.

The auto trader said the outage was restricting its ability to trade within certain parts of its business in some operating locations across Australia and New Zealand.

“Eagers Automotive apologises to customers for any inconvenience,” a company spokesman said.

Eagers has more than 300 dealerships across Australia, in all states and territories, as well as in New Zealand and owns Australia’s largest national fixed price pre-owned automotive business, easyauto123.

The company would hold a large amount of data due to the size of its operations, its spread of dealerships across Australia and its handling of the biggest car brands.

It is the latest cyber incident to hit an Australian corporate with one of the nation’s largest health networks on Friday conceding it was the victim of a cyber security breach. St Vincent’s hospital revealed on Monday it did not know whether sensitive health records had been taken, sparking concern the organisation had failed in its duty to protect sensitive patient information.

It follows other high-profile cyber attacks including Medibank and Optus.

Australia’s corporate leaders recently reported that a cyber attack now represented the single biggest external threat to the running of their businesses and was the top issue that kept them awake at night. Cyber was the overwhelming response to a question about what kept chief executives up at night as part of The Australian’s 2024 CEO Survey.

A spokesman for Eagers on Wednesday said an accelerated investigation of the company’s IT systems is underway to determine the extent of the cyber incident, and to ensure customer and employee information remains safeguarded.

“The company is investigating rapidly and, to this point, has not found any access to or misuse of customer or employee information. As part of our cyber security protocols, external incident response experts have been appointed to support the ongoing investigation and response.”

“Maintaining the security and privacy of our customers’ data and our employees’ data is our highest priority and all efforts of the business are now focused on safely restoring our systems.

“At this stage, customers do not need to do anything but we ask them to remain vigilant of any suspicious activity.”

In October, Eagers’ largest shareholder Nick Politis was set to pocket $245m after selling his private portfolio of Victorian dealerships and properties to the ASX-listed company.

The portfolio is across Melbourne and the Mornington region and is owned by a group of companies associated with Mr Politis, who is an Eagers board member with a 27 per cent stake in the company.

The Eagers’ acquisition will add about $1bn to its annual turnover and 770 employees to the company’s operations, adding significant scale to its Victorian business. Mr Politis, whose personal fortune is nearing $2.5bn, said the automotive industry was evolving more rapidly than at any time in his career.

Eagers shares were placed in a trading halt as it dealt with the cyber incident.