The first day of September should have marked the beginning of one of the busiest periods of the year for Jaguar Land Rover.<\/b><\/p>\n
It was a Monday, and the release of new 75 series number plates was expected to trigger a surge in demand. At factories in Solihull and Halewood, as well as at its engine plant in Wolverhampton, staff anticipated that they\u2019d be working flat out.<\/p>\n
Instead, when the early shift arrived, they were sent home. The production lines have remained idle ever since.<\/p>\n
Though they are expected to resume operations in the coming days, it will be in a slow and carefully controlled manner. It could be another month before output returns to normal. Such was the impact of a major cyber attack that hit JLR at the end of August.<\/p>\n
It is working with various cyber security specialists and police to investigate, but the financial damage has already been done. More than a month’s worth of worldwide production was lost.<\/p>\n
Analysts have estimated its losses at \u00a350m per week.<\/p>\n
For a company that made a \u00a32.5bn profit in the last financial year, and which is owned by the Indian giant Tata Group, the losses will likely be painful but not fatal. But JLR is not an isolated incident.<\/p>\n
So far this year there has been a wave of cyber attacks targeting big businesses, including retailers such as Marks & Spencer and the Co-op, as well as a key airport systems provider. Other high profile victims have included the children’s nursery chain Kido, while last year incidents involving Southern Water and a company that provided blood tests to the NHS raised serious concerns about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and services.<\/p>\n
In all, a government-run survey on cyber security breaches estimates 612,000 businesses and 61,000 charities were targeted across the UK.<\/p>\n
So just how much are attacks like these costing businesses and the economy? And could it be, as one expert analyst puts it, that this year’s major attacks are the result of a “cumulative effect of a kind of inaction” on cyber security from the government and businesses that is now starting to bite?<\/p>\n