The Danish BMW dealer acknowledges in an email to its customers that the store has been subjected to a hacker attack. The case has now been reported to the police.
Danish car dealer Jan Nygaard confirms in an email to his customers that the company has been subjected to a hacker attack.
In the email, which Boosted and several other Danish media outlets have obtained, Jan Nygaard acknowledges that a hacker group has gained access to a number of customers' data.
"On Sunday, January 5, 2025, Jan Nygaard AS was subjected to a cyberattack in the form of a ransomware attack that briefly affected our IT systems," the email states.
The car dealership states that they immediately activated their emergency response when they became aware of the attack.
"Upon recognizing the attack, we responded immediately by activating our emergency response, which has helped us maintain critical key functions and restore our operations via backup."
Jan Nygaard runs five stores on Zealand and has almost 300 employees. The company's net turnover is 2.5 billion kroner.
According to Computerworld, the hacker group DragonForce is behind the attack.
DragonForce has a countdown clock on a website affiliated with the group. When the clock reaches zero, DragonForce threatens to leak the stolen data from the car dealership.
Jan Nygaard states in the email that they have worked with IT specialists to investigate the extent of the hacker attack.
"As a result of the attack, we have worked with both internal and external IT specialists to uncover the scope and causes of the attack. We have thereby been able to establish that this is a criminal cyber attack directed against our servers," writes Jan Nygaard.
The car dealer takes the attack seriously and has reported the matter to the police and the Danish Data Protection Agency.
"The attack is taken very seriously, and we have immediately reported the matter to the Police and the Danish Data Protection Agency," the email reads.
Jan Nygaard has also taken steps to prevent similar hacker attacks in the future.
"We have also taken the necessary precautions to ensure that a similar attack cannot occur in the future by taking down the attacked server."
DragonForce is a relatively new hacking group that was first discovered in 2023. The group is believed to be based in Malaysia and has been linked to attacks on major companies such as Coca-Cola Singapore and the Ohio Lottery. And now also the Danish BMW dealer.
How the hacker group obtained the data they are now threatening to leak is still unknown. But this is not the first time hackers have forced their way into car dealerships' data and thus their business.
In July 2024, nearly 15,000 car dealerships in the United States were hit by a consistent wave of hacker attacks. The attack was so severe that there was initial talk of paying a ransom to get rid of the hackers.
