Emergency Press Conference: Over 50% of US Car Dealers Are Shut Down Due To Cyber Attack

Alright, emergency situations call for emergency videos. You guys don't often see me like this. I'm actually on vacation with my family. And it's been a pretty wild two days. So let me share with you my hot take around what's happening and the potential solutions and what the future can look like. So to quickly recap the situation, CDK was underwent a cyber attack over the last 36 hours. And overnight, last night or in the morning, I mean, sometime overnight, they got hit with another attack. Now, it's hard to really know right now that you're in the fog of war, who really knows what's happening? And if this was the same attacker and just had some more, the systems were still compromised maybe internally and weren't actually fully recovered. And when they started turning systems back on, maybe the attacker, again, did what they did, it's really tough to know right now. I feel for CDK and all dealers going through this because it's just terrible.

好的，紧急情况需要紧急视频。大家通常不会看到我这样。我现在其实在和家人度假。这两天发生了很多事，所以我想和大家分享一下我的看法、潜在的解决方案以及未来的可能情况。简要回顾一下，CDK在过去36小时内遭遇了网络攻击。昨晚到今天早上之间，又遭受了一次攻击。现在很难确定到底发生了什么，因为我们还在混乱之中，谁也不清楚是不是同一攻击者，还是系统内部可能依然存在漏洞，导致并未完全恢复。当他们重新启动系统时，攻击者可能又采取了行动。现在真的很难说。我为CDK和所有受影响的经销商感到难过，因为这种情况实在是太糟糕了。

I tweeted that automotive is like three to three and a half percent of GDP. You have CDK powering roughly 50% of the industry and their systems, right? Like people are DMing me from everywhere all over the country like, hey, I can't buy a car now or I can't sell a car. I mean, it's a really bad situation, all right? Let's take it a step further, right? I'm gonna assume that CDK is gonna figure this out soon, shortly, right? A couple of things to note here. Number one is dealers are texting me of lots of things, but some of the themes that I'm hearing is, number one is like everyone is in just wartime mode, right? Like you have people flooding your showroom, you're trying to put cars on the road, it's really tough.

我发了一条推文，说汽车行业占GDP的3%到3.5%。CDK大约支持了这个行业的50%，对吧？现在全国各地的人都在私信我，说他们现在买不了车，也卖不了车。这情况真的很糟糕，对吧？让我们更进一步了解一下，好吗？我假设CDK很快就会解决这个问题。这里需要注意几点。第一是经销商们给我发信息说了很多事情，但是我听到的主要几点是，大家现在都处于战时状态。你有很多人涌进展厅，你在努力把车卖出去，这真的很难。

Everyone's trying to like figure out, what are we doing, pen and paper? Are we spotting cars? Like, right, we're putting them on the road, we're gonna sell them in a couple of days when the systems are back up. Service is a huge pain point for people because service is not as easy as a solution, it's just spotting cars. And so service has been a really big challenge for dealers, trying to figure out how to get the cars in and out with parts and it gets really complicated on the service side. But the other thing to note is that the number one thing I'm hearing from dealers is they're asking me or they're just talking about hedging, right? Because everyone now is like, this is traumatic moment when you have hundreds, if not thousands of employees, they can't work and customers, right? The first thing you think about is like, more than ever is how do I hedge this? Now, it doesn't mean that dealers have not been hedging already before this, but now it's just to go to an extreme level. And so what I would say this is like, if I'm CDK right now, I think that there's a couple options.

每个人都在试图搞清楚我们应该做什么，是要用笔和纸吗？我们是不是要检测汽车？对吧，我们把车放上路，在系统恢复的几天后再卖掉。维修服务对人们来说是一个巨大的痛点，因为服务不像检测汽车那样容易解决。因此，维修服务对经销商来说是一个很大的挑战，他们要弄清楚如何处理汽车进出和零件的问题，而这在服务方面变得非常复杂。但另一个需要注意的事情是，我从经销商那里听到的最多的一件事是，他们在问我或者讨论的是如何对冲风险，对吗？因为现在每个人都经历了这种创伤时刻，当你有数百甚至数千名员工无法工作，还有客户，对吧？你首先想到的就是，比以往任何时候都更要去对冲风险。这并不意味着经销商在此之前没有对冲风险，但现在这种需求已经到了极端的程度。所以我会说，如果我是CDK公司，现在有几个选项。

I think that, and I'm not, I don't know economically what this means, I'm just kind of giving you my hot takes here. But I think number one is every single dealer that is experiencing this right now, the first thing that's going through the mind is going to, after it's over is, you know, what do I do? Do I have two DMSs now? Do I switch a DMS, all these stuff? Right now, the reality is this can happen to anyone. Obviously the more well prepared and equipped you are, the less likely, and it doesn't mean that CDK wasn't prepared. We don't know the details yet. But the point is everyone is prone to cyber attacks. But what I would do if I was CDK, or I think at least an option is I would offer some form of like on-premises servers to all my dealers, complimentary, or at some subsidy, right after the fact here, because dealers will hedge. That's going to happen, 100%.

我认为，虽然我不清楚这在经济上意味着什么，但我只是给出我的一些看法。我认为，首先，现在每个经销商正在经历这一切，最先想到的事情是，等这一切结束后，我该怎么办？我是否需要两个DMS（经销商管理系统）？要不要换一个DMS，等等。事实上，这种情况对任何人都有可能发生。显然，你准备得越充分，配备得越好，发生的可能性就越小。当然，这并不意味着CDK（公司）没有准备好。我们还不知道具体细节。但重点是，每个人都可能遭遇网络攻击。如果我是CDK，或者至少这是一个选择，我会向我的所有经销商免费或以某种补贴形式提供一些本地服务器，因为经销商会有防范意识。这将是必然的。

The question is how will they do it? And so, you know, on one hand, they may go for, to have to run through DMSs, which is, which will be, you know, extremely inefficient, and costly, but it's going to route that absolutely some dealers will do. And by the way, I know many dealers that have two DMSs. That's not like a novel concept. But I think the second thing is like, if I'm a CDK, I'm thinking, okay, how do I hedge this? Without having my dealers go for a second DMS, right? Is there a way for me to provide that security? And I think that we're going to go back to many more on-premises servers. Just like we've all used, right? These are servers on-site. I remember when we installed our first on-premises server and I was like, what is this? Hey, piece of technology. But hey, lo and behold, in many cases, it's probably better. And that doesn't mean that that's not prone to attacks and hacks and stuff like that.

问题是，他们将如何实现这一点？你知道，一方面，他们可能会选择通过DMS系统来运行，这种方式极其低效且昂贵，但肯定会有一些经销商这样做。顺便说一下，我知道许多经销商有两个DMS系统，这并不是一个新颖的概念。 但我认为第二个问题是，如果我是CDK公司，我会想，如何在不让我的经销商使用第二个DMS系统的情况下，对这一风险进行对冲？有没有办法让我提供那种安全保障？我认为我们会回到更多的本地服务器。就像我们都用过的那种服务器，它们是放在现场的。我记得我们安装第一台本地服务器时的情景，我当时在想，这是什么科技产品？但事实证明，在很多情况下，可能这种方式更好。虽然这并不意味着这些服务器不会受到攻击和黑客入侵。

Everything can be, and I'm also not a cybersecurity expert, but I do understand that, you know, that likely is a bit tougher to breach because it's on-premises, it's not in the cloud, yada yada yada. So really tough situation overall. I really do feel for all the employees and just people that are experiencing this because it's just really unfortunate. And it's definitely not something for anyone to, you know, glee about or for competitors to spend its time trying to upsell or, you know, trying to kind of take business.

一切皆有可能，我并不是网络安全专家，但我知道，本地服务器（on-premises）由于不在云端，可能会更难被攻破，诸如此类。因此，这是一个非常棘手的情况。我真的为所有受此影响的员工和人们感到难过，因为这实在是不幸的事情。而且，这绝对不是什么值得高兴的事，也不是竞争对手应该花时间利用来推销或抢占业务的机会。

I mean, no one wants to buy your shit right now, right? If you're a vendor, if you're anyone that's selling anything to someone that's experiencing this right now, no one wants to buy your shit, right? Everyone just wants to figure out what you're doing. I see some people posting about, it's like, it's really tone deaf actually, trying to go and sell on a time like this. Like, don't do that, right? And by the way, it doesn't matter, I'm not talking about like competitors, like, you know, dealership management system competitors.

我的意思是，现在没人想买你的东西，对吗？如果你是卖家，或者任何正在向经历这种情况的人卖东西的人，现在没人想买你的东西，对吗？大家只想弄明白你在做什么。我看到有些人发帖试图在这样的时候卖东西，这真的很不合时宜，不要这样做，对吗？顺便说一下，这跟竞争对手没关系，不管是像汽车经销商管理系统这样的竞争对手。

I'm referring to, you know, if you're a vendor selling anything, or you could be selling like detailing products. But if you're doing this, someone with a customer that's affected and I see people posting stuff, it just feels really tone deaf. My two senses don't do that, you can do whatever you want, but that's my two cents. So anyways, that's my hot take. And hopefully this is figured out soon because it's really, really unfortunate for thousands and thousands and thousands of people across the country.

我指的是，比如说，如果你是一个卖东西的商家，无论卖什么，比如汽车美容产品。如果你在面对客户时这样做，我看到有人发的帖子，真的感觉很没有同理心。我的建议是别那么做，你可以随意，但这是我的两分钱建议。不管怎样，这是我的看法。希望这个问题能尽快解决，因为这对全国成千上万的人来说确实是非常不幸的。

I keep you posted.

我会随时告诉你最新情况。