Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is set to resume manufacturing after being closed for almost one month after a cyber-attack forced systems offline in the UK, India, Brazil, and Slovakia.
“As the controlled, phased restart of our operations continues, we are taking further steps towards our recovery and the return to manufacture of our world‑class vehicles,” JLR said in a statement.
“Today we are informing colleagues, retailers and suppliers that some sections of our manufacturing operations will resume in the coming days.”
The UK government was forced to step in, offering a $2bn (£1.5bn) loan to support suppliers and protect jobs across the UK.
The BBC reports this is the first time in the UK that a company has received government support after a cyber-attack.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Jaguar Land Rover is an iconic British company which employs tens of thousands of people – a jewel in the crown of our economy.”
“Today we are protecting thousands of those jobs with up to £1.5 billion in additional private finance, helping them support their supply chain and protect a vital part of the British car industry.”
Liam Byrne, West Midlands MP, said that further government help may well be needed to help JLR and its suppliers recover from the attack.
Industry publication The Insurer has reported that JLR was not insured against the cyber-attack, and was still finalizing its cybersecurity insurance policy when the attack hit in August.
Exact details of the cyber-attack are still sketchy. In a statement on September 2nd, JLR simply said: “JLR has been impacted by a cyber incident. We took immediate action to mitigate its impact by proactively shutting down our systems.”
Reportedly, managers have been able to access their emails, but design, engineering and product life-cycle software were all taken offline.
JLR is one of the UK’s biggest employers, with around 30,000 employees and 100,000 working for its supply chain partners.
Some analysts feared the attack could have led to smaller, more vulnerable firms going bankrupt.
The attack has been claimed by the Scattered Spider criminal group, who are believed to be responsible for attacks on several high street retailers in the UK this year.
In July, four members of Scattered Spider were arrested, two males aged nineteen, one aged seventeen, and a female aged twenty. In September, two more teenagers were arrested on suspicion of targeting the US healthcare organizations.
