By Muvija M
LONDON (Reuters) -Jaguar Land Rover is working “at pace” to resolve a cyber incident that has severely disrupted its retail and production activities, the luxury carmaker said on Friday, with its factory staff told to stay at home until early next week.
The breach, which the company disclosed on Tuesday, is the latest in a string of cyber and ransomware attacks targeting companies around the world. In Britain, household names including Marks & Spencer and Co-op have fallen victim to increasingly sophisticated breaches.
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), owned by India’s Tata Motors, said it took immediate action to mitigate the impact from the incident by shutting down its systems. It reiterated in an emailed statement on Friday that there was no evidence customer data had been stolen at this stage.
“We are now working at pace to restart our global applications in a controlled manner,” the statement from JLR, which has three carmaking factories in Britain, said. “Our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted.”
Factory staff at Britain’s largest automotive employer with around 33,000 employees will stay at home until at least Tuesday.
M&S, which suffered the most high-profile hack this year, estimated the months-long disruption to its business cost it about 300 million pounds ($405.27 million) in lost operating profit.
JLR has already struggled this year, reporting a near 11% quarterly sales drop in July due in part to a temporary pause in U.S. shipments after the U.S. administration of Donald Trump imposed tariffs on all car imports.
While JLR resumed exports to the U.S. in May, it slashed its main profit margin target for fiscal 2026 to 5%-7% from 10% amid continuing uncertainty around U.S. tariff policy. Like its peers, the company has also been battling weak demand in China and slowing sales in Europe.
($1 = 0.7402 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M; Editing by Kate Holton and Alexandra Hudson)
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