JLR hack is costliest cyber attack in UK history, say analysts

JLR hack is costliest cyber attack in UK history, say analysts 2 hours ago Share Save Joe Tidy Cyber correspondent, BBC World Service Share Save Reuters The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will cost an estimated £1.9bn and be the most economically damaging cyber event in UK history, according to researchers. Experts at the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC) have analysed the continuing fallout from the hack, which halted the car giant's production on 1 September for five weeks and caused widespread delays across JLR's supply chain. According to the CMC, 5,000 businesses have been affected in total and a full recovery will not be reached until January 2026. JLR declined to comment on the research but said it is bringing portions of manufacturing back online in a phased approach. The CMC is an independent, non-profit organisation that analyses and categorises cyber events, which impact the UK financially. It has classified the JLR incident as a Category 3 event, which is significant. Category 5 is the most severe. Ciaran Martin, chair of the CMC's technical committee said: "With a cost of nearly £2bn, this incident looks to have been by some distance, the single most financially damaging cyber event ever to hit the UK. "That should make us all pause and think. Every organisation needs to identify the networks that matter to them, and how to protect them better, and then plan for how they'd cope if the network gets disrupted." This is the second report published by the CMC, which uses publicly available information, surveys and interviews with industry experts and victims to make its assessments. Although the National Cyber Security Centre also categorises cyber attacks depending on how severe they are, it does not publish its findings.