Nissan Systems Outage Takes Down Financing, Parts and Other Services Nationwide
The automaker isn’t commenting on the root cause of the issue, which has led some to speculate that it could be a ransomware attack.
Japanese automaker Nissan's North American operations are currently experiencing a widespread network outage, according to Automotive News. The exact cause of the issue isn't clear, however it allegedly affects multiple vital parts of dealers' businesses, and it's been going on for two days. In a memo seen by AN, the outage is said to affect internal email, some call centers, and "applications," whatever that means. Other sources say it's more widespread, however.
A cyberattack could be a possible cause, however Nissan has refused to comment on that, only saying it's a network outage. Importantly, it affects the company's credit application processing and other loan-related services. That means the automaker may struggle to sell cars in the near term, although the issue has only been ongoing for a few days and the company says it's working quickly to resolve the problem.
Other key areas that are allegedly affected are parts ordering, rebate information, recall data, and warranty claims. So at the moment, it will likely be difficult for dealers to service cars as well.
This is not the first widespread network outage to affect an automaker. In 2017, Kia had massive network issues that denied owners access to its in-car UVO system which provided important information to drivers like weather data. Dealer systems were also affected, and it was later revealed that a ransomware attack was likely behind the problems. The attackers demanded millions of dollars in Bitcoin to make the trouble go away, but it's unclear how the situation was eventually resolved.
Nissan also suffered a ransomware attack back in 2017, which may be the source of some of the speculation that this isn't just an IT-related outage.
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