UK Government To Guarantee $2 Billion Jaguar Land Rover Loan After Cyber Shutdown (bbc.com) 34
The UK government will underwrite a $2 billion loan guarantee to Jaguar Land Rover in a bid to support its suppliers as a cyber-attack continues to halt production at the car maker. BBC: Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the loan, from a commercial bank, would protect jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and across the UK. The manufacturer has been forced to suspend production for weeks after being targeted by hackers at the end of August. There have been growing concerns some suppliers, mostly small businesses, could go bust due to the prolonged shutdown.
About 30,000 people are directly employed at the company's UK plants with about 100,000 working for firms in the supply chain. Some of these firms supply parts exclusively to JLR, while others sell components to other carmakers as well. It is believed to be the first time that a company has received government help as a result of a cyber-attack.
About 30,000 people are directly employed at the company's UK plants with about 100,000 working for firms in the supply chain. Some of these firms supply parts exclusively to JLR, while others sell components to other carmakers as well. It is believed to be the first time that a company has received government help as a result of a cyber-attack.
For a car maker that has essentially... (Score:4, Insightful)
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FTTY.
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That commercial was brilliant. It got all the people who wouldn't buy their cars in the first place to talk about it.
My response to the commercial: Ok?
Then I went on with my life and forgot about it.
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Um, It sunk the company.
Goodbye Jaguar, Hello Kitty (Score:4)
That commercial was brilliant. It got all the people who wouldn't buy their cars in the first place to talk about it.
Yes, the only way it could have been better is if it had managed to get the people who would be likely to buy their cars to talk about it in a good way. As far as I can tell "Jaguar" seems to be in the middle of a major rebranding to become the "Hello Kitty" of luxury sports cars and it's going about as well as you'd expect it to.
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Jaguar's problem is that they have become associated with an ageing and dying population of old male smokers. Their formerly prestigious Land Rover brand is now seen as mostly owned by people with tiny, microscopic penises who ignored the warnings about how easy they are to steal and how much much they cost to keep running. Those and mothers who can't drive so prefer a mini tank in the hope that it forces other people to avoid their erratic manoeuvring on the school run.
They need to transition to EVs, and t
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1% or more of UK's total non-government workforce (Score:2)
One company, its suppliers employ ~100,000 people. Assuming that there's double the number of those jobs when indirect workers are included.
It's roughly 1% of the UK's non-government workforce with active employment. of ~28 million actively employed workers.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com].
It begs the question, if you take all actively employed people in the UK, subtract out direct government workers, subtract out contractors/suppliers who get half or more of their sales from the government, subtract out o
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As far as I can tell "Jaguar" seems to be in the middle of a major rebranding to become the "Hello Kitty" of luxury sports cars and it's going about as well as you'd expect it to.
To be honest that is a roaring declaration of success for the company. Hello Kitty actually makes sales. Jaguar has been in the pits for over a decade. At this point doing anything at all, even this, has to be better than the trajectory they were on. They were selling less than 1/4 of the vehicles they were just 10 years ago long before discussions of rebranding.
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Hello Kitty actually makes sales. Jaguar has been in the pits for over a decade.
Different brands sell different things to different people. Think of it like this. If you took a brand like "Toilet Duck" - a toilet cleaner - and tried to use it to sell Toilet Duck branded chocolate bars do you really think that you will sell many even if Toilet Duck was massively popular?
Re:For a car maker that has essentially... (Score:4, Informative)
Keeping domestic manufacturing alive and well is important for national security. Consider how World War Part Two would have played out if the USA could not produce as many trucks, airplanes, ships, and so much else in the time leading up to the war and to the very end.
Keeping JLR in business is important to keep factories open and people trained in skills needed should this Cold War Part Two we are in warm up. This would go double for factories already set to build off-road trucks, they'd be quite vital to the logistics and front line combat if there's a land war in Asia. This goes for all kinds of manufacturing. We had factories that made sewing machines converted to making rifles. We had factories making Christmas lights converted to making vacuum tubes and artillery fuses. This isn't unique to UK, other nations like Germany, Poland, France, and Australia are working to develop their own manufacturing in case China wants to start a war, or Putin decides Russia should annex land beyond Ukraine.
(Why would a company making light bulbs be in the business of making artillery fuses? There would be a small glass vial filled with acid inside a set of plates made of lead. The firing of the shell would shatter the glass and the spinning motion imparted by the rifling forced the acid to the outside and between the plates. This meant the battery wasn't losing charge until needed. It also meant that if the fuse was dropped hard enough in transport to break the vial there would be no spinning motion to keep the acid from shorting out the lead plates and causing the shell to arm itself. This made the fuse very safe for friendly forces and quite dangerous for their foes. It is an ingenious design and did plenty to help win the war for the Allies. It's the "VT fuze", look it up. There's a great video on the VT fuze from The Fat Electrician on YouTube.)
Where was I? Oh, right, Australia. Australia has become nervous with China getting aggressive in the waters around them and so is looking to expand their shipbuilding capacity. They can't expect China to supply them ships if there's a land war in Asia going on.
There doesn't even need to be a shooting war to demonstrate the need for domestic manufacturing. If there's some disruption in trade because of a breakdown in international relations, a natural disaster, or something else that I can't think up right now, then there could be a need to rely heavily on what is produced at home.
Oh, I just thought up something else that can make domestic automotive production important. Because of BEV fires on cargo ships being a concern, which is understandable after a ship was lost due to a BEV fire causing structural damage severe enough to cause the ship to sink, there's shipping companies refusing to move BEVs. If much of the BEVs in Europe are coming by sea from the Americas and Asia then that could mean few BEVs available in Europe until this is worked out.
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“ This meant the battery wasn't losing charge until needed. It also meant that if the fuse was dropped hard enough in transport to break the vial there would be no spinning motion to keep the acid from shorting out the lead plates and causing the shell to arm itself. This made the fuse very safe for friendly forces and quite dangerous for their foes.”
Intriguing. Can you explain this further? What were the actions or inactions by allies during transport and mechanism aspects that made it safer? What were the actions or inactions by the foes that made it more dangerous? Thanks.
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Intriguing. Can you explain this further?
I thought I gave enough clues with "VT fuze" and "Fat Electrician" to find plenty. Here, I'll help everyone out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
What were the actions or inactions by allies during transport and mechanism aspects that made it safer?
It's not that the VT fuze was "safer" exactly, it's still a fuse inside an explosive shell that if mishandled could "go boom" and kill friendlies. The point was that it was important that it wasn't going to arm itself and "go boom" because it was rolled off the back of a truck accidentally and left a crater where your artillery team used to be. The point behi
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Insurance case? (Score:4, Interesting)
I am sure a company like Jaguar has cybersecurity insurance. This service comes in many variations - it can cover direct costs of handling the incident (eg extra hours logged by your employees), third party costs (eg additional anti-ddos services purchased to mitigate the attack), post-incident cleanup costs, ransomware payments...
Would Jaguar file an insurance claim? Based on which policy? Would they get a payout? For what?
Would be insightful to learn about this, after the dust has settled.
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They have no chance to get anything if they have insurance. Insurance comes with conditions. In this case, there will be BCM and DR preparations, infrastructure resilience, etc. requirements, and they clearly did not fulfill them.
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Apparently Jaguar did not have insurance to cover this event.
If they had had insurance, it would probably have required them to secure their systems, or not paid out when they failed to do so. If they had been covered, the insurer would probably have paid the ransom.
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I mean....they didn't mention a car....so, surely...some other skills...?
The cynic in me thinks this is a setup. (Score:3)
For years, even before Tata bought Jaguar, Jag's been in death spiral. Each new car less enticing than the former.
The F-Type could've been such a great thing but they saddled it with with everything except what a Jag of that lineage needs: A twincam straight six, to go back to their XK roots. (XK the engine, not the car). There was an anemic four, an overpowered eight, and a tapioca v-6. No straight-six.
Then, they announced they were going to stop building all cars, and come back with.. something. When they showed the "something," along with a "new look".. well.. disaster
I think they tanked so hard they've feigned this hack thing. If I were the UK cops, I'd be looking at that scenario. Sure, it's plausible they were indeed ransom'd by a stranger, but it's just too good. Too convenient.
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Or a poorly run company was failing in all areas and their security was held to the same standard as their car design, leading to the inevitable.
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Can't help but notice the government didn't fall over themselves trying to save British Leyland before what was left over eventually got owned by Tata. I do, however, remember them falling over themselves to save "British" Steel, completely coincidentally also opened by Tata...
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* owned not opened. Missed that auto-correct.
How much did the hacker ask for? Just pay? (Score:1)
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Paying is and has always been a very bad idea. In particular, it does not restore your infrastructure.
too big to fail (Score:2)
Too big to fail, UK-style.
Too much Agile in the mix /s (Score:2)
How Agile [berwickpartners.co.uk]
Outsourcing and SAP, good combination (Score:3)
Production lines should be offline.... (Score:3)
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Interesting (Score:1)
Merged into one that became hell in a handbasket (Score:1)