Eagers suffers cyber attack

Eagers Automotive is grappling with the impacts of a cyber attack that affected parts of its operations across New Zealand and Australia.

The Australian-listed company operates dealerships on both sides of the Tasman and the cyber incident led to an outage of IT systems at some of its sites.

In response to the incident, Eagers entered a trading halt on December 27 and notified the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre and its Australian counterpart.

Eagers has multiple dealerships in Auckland representing marques such as Ford, Hyundai, Mazda, MG, Mitsubishi and its used-car brand, easyauto123.

In a statement to the ASX on December 29, the company says most of its dealerships were able to stay open and continue to trade with the impact of the attack varied across its regions and business units.

“The disruption is primarily impacting our ability to finalise transactions for certain new vehicles, which have been sold and ready for delivery, and some aspects of the company’s service and parts operations,” it adds.  

Eagers notes the deferred transactions from late December are expected to be recognised in the 2024 financial year, “once they have been appropriately finalised within our systems”.  

“As soon as the incident was detected, the company immediately commenced an investigation, supported by external experts, to understand the extent of the incident,” the company continues.  

“A primary focus of the investigation is to understand whether any personal information has been impacted. This remains under close review.”