JLR CYBER ATTACK COULD BE COSTING THE FIRM £5M A DAY

It has made no cars since hackers infiltrated systems on 1 September

- NICK GIBBS

JLR could be losing up to £5 million a day in profit as it continues to suffer the consequences of a devastating cyber attack that shut down its operations on 1 September.

The shutdown of car production in the British firm's two factories in the UK as well as those in China, India and Slovakia means an average loss of 1000 cars a day, based on normalised production figures, according to David Bailey, professor of business economics at Birmingham Business School. That equates to a daily revenue loss of around £72 million, which, based on current profit margins, could severely impact the company's earnings.

"If output is suspended for much of September, then that could be a £150m profit hit for the firm," said Bailey. "The longer the shutdown goes on, the bigger the hit to profit and the more likely it is that customers simply decide to go elsewhere."

While there is never a good time for production to stall, JLR is in the midst of a profit slump, with margins in the second quarter of 2025 dropping to 4.0% - down more than half from 8.9% during the same quarter the year before - after it was hit by US trade tariffs and slowing sales in China.

At the time of writing, it was understood that JLR was aiming to resume production on Monday 15 September, but there were fears disruption could extend into a third week.

The attack has been claimed by a group of hackers calling themselves Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, who posted pictures on the social media site Telegram purporting to show internal instructions for troubleshooting a car charging issue and internal computer logs.