Status of Pendragon’s data unclear after hackers issue revised ultimatum

The group behind a major cyber attack on car retail giant Pendragon gave the company a revised ultimatum to meet its £53m ransom demand last week, Car Dealer Magazine has revealed.

LockBit 3.0 is understood to have given the Nottingham firm until Saturday 29 October – eight days after its initial deadline elapsed – to pay $60m into a Bitcoin wallet or face some 2 million stolen files being leaked onto the dark web.

Late last week, Pendragon told the trade title it had “absolutely not” paid the ransom and said the threat to its IT systems had been contained.

It is unclear whether the data has been leaked now the revised deadline has passed.

A little over a week ago Pendragon told The Times the group had managed to steal around 5% of its database.

The firm said it had taken immediate steps to contain the incident and revealed it had successfully obtained an interim injunction from the High Court against the hackers.

On Thursday (27 October), Pendragon said its IT experts had found “no evidence of any ongoing threats in the network” and said it was monitoring the situation using an “industry-leading endpoint, detection and response system.”

News of the breach came around a month after the firm revealed it was carrying out a “comprehensive review of all potential strategic options” following a £400m takeover bid by its largest shareholder.

Last Monday, Pendragon said Hedin Group had been granted access to complete necessary due diligence but insisted there was “no certainty” a firm offer would be made.