Posts
164
Joined
11/24/2011
Location
Canyon Country, CA
US
Last week the PU dealer website went down. Not uncommon these days. After a few days things seemed a bit off. My rep reached out and told us pretty much what we already knew.
"On Thursday December 9th, LeMans Corporation incurred a significant cyber attack. As a response, we shut down all I.T. systems including email, phone and websites. At this time, we have no indication of risk to our customers or vendors, and we are working diligently around the clock to return to normal operations as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize to our dealers for the disruption and inconvenience. Updates will be communicated to you on dealer.parts-unlimited.com and dealer.dragspecialties.com and at this time, we anticipate resuming operations on or before Monday December 20th. For dealer questions and concerns, please contact your sales representative or send an email to LeMansDealerServices@gmail.com. For vendor questions and concerns, please contact your buyer or send an email to LeMansVendorServices@gmail.com."
If you were having issues getting parts before now things will be even harder. Couldn't have happened at a worse time of the year. There used to be so many good incentives to use PU, they used to really support the sport but since their exit from SX and MX seems be just about the profits.
"On Thursday December 9th, LeMans Corporation incurred a significant cyber attack. As a response, we shut down all I.T. systems including email, phone and websites. At this time, we have no indication of risk to our customers or vendors, and we are working diligently around the clock to return to normal operations as soon as possible. We sincerely apologize to our dealers for the disruption and inconvenience. Updates will be communicated to you on dealer.parts-unlimited.com and dealer.dragspecialties.com and at this time, we anticipate resuming operations on or before Monday December 20th. For dealer questions and concerns, please contact your sales representative or send an email to LeMansDealerServices@gmail.com. For vendor questions and concerns, please contact your buyer or send an email to LeMansVendorServices@gmail.com."
If you were having issues getting parts before now things will be even harder. Couldn't have happened at a worse time of the year. There used to be so many good incentives to use PU, they used to really support the sport but since their exit from SX and MX seems be just about the profits.
While it certainly gets harder each year for a middle-man to stay in business thanks to the ever-growing opportunities available to manufacturers to sell their products directly, PU's business strategy has been obvious for many years. They clearly paid little attention to the practices and subsequent demise of Super Shops. Beating the shit out of your vendors financially until you put them into a position where they are forced to accept your purchase offer only gets you so far these days. There are just too many other options available to both their suppliers and their dealers. Manufacturers go somewhere else....dealers go somewhere else....customers go somewhere else. A product line comparison of 15 years ago vs. today says it all.
I'm guessing the cyber attack was some form of ransom attack. It's the only explanation that seems feasible for this long of a shutdown. It would imply that they had inadequate back-up practices which is pretty disappointing considering how common those attacks have become and how well known the risks are. There's no excuse for a business of that size to have not prepared itself. I'm curious as to the level of exposure of dealer/customer data. Their current statement merely communicates that they don't know.
The Shop
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