Customers warned after major car dealership group Eagers Automotive hacked

Customers of Australia’s largest car dealership have been warned they could fall victim to hackers after a cyber attack.

Australia’s largest car seller is the latest company to fall victim to a cyber attack, with customers warned they could be affected.

Eagers Automotive, which owns more than 300 dealerships across every state and territory, has entered a trading halt after it alerted authorities it had fallen victim to the attack on December 27.

“The outage is currently impacting our IT systems in some operating locations across Australia and New Zealand, but the full extent of the cyber incident cannot yet be ascertained,” chief executive Keith Thornton said.

The company is Australia's leading car retail group in Australia and New Zealand, with sales revenue of $8.54 billion.

“The company apologises to our customers for any inconvenience.”

External experts have been appointed to handle the fallout of the attack and an urgent investigation is under way into how many people are affected.

The company lists its main operations as being located in Brisbane, regional Queensland, Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, the Newcastle/Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, ACT, Tasmania and Auckland.

It’s likely hackers were able to access a huge trove of data due to the company’s size and its spread of dealerships.

The company draws in $8.2bn in sales revenue which it gets from selling brands such as Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Ford, Jeep, Suzuki and Volvo.

The group also own a number of second hand dealerships including the nation’s largest fixed-priced used car business easyauto123.

Eagers said it has launched a “rapid” investigation and has not yet found access to customer or employee information.

Customers have been warned to be on the look out for any suspicious activity.

Originally published as Customers warned after major car dealership group Eagers Automotive hacked