Jaguar Land Rover halts production after cyberattack disrupts UK plants

Jaguar Land Rover has halted production and curtailed sales after a cyber attack discovered late Sunday forced the British carmaker to take key IT systems offline, disrupting operations at several UK plants and locking dealers out of retail systems during the peak new-registration period. The company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, has told thousands of factory staff not to report to work until at least early next week as it works to restore systems in a controlled manner.

The shutdown has affected vehicle assembly at sites widely reported to include Halewood and Solihull and the engine plant in Wolverhampton, with some accounts also naming Castle Bromwich. Dealers said they could not process some new registrations that normally take place when fresh registration plates are released on September 1, leaving customers facing delivery and repair delays. JLR said some transactions have still been completed and that its public-facing website and car configurator remained online.

Tata Motors described the incident in a stock-exchange filing as a global IT security issue, and Jaguar Land Rover said it acted proactively to contain the breach. A company spokesperson said, "We took...