If you’re planning to buy a Kia today, you may have to wait a day or two. If you own a Kia and are planning to use its remote start function to avoid climbing into a cold car this morning, you may be out of luck.
Some parts of Kia’s dealership network are down with some Kia dealers reportedly unable to complete transactions. Meanwhile, a number of Kia owners report that UVO Link services are also down. UVO Link allows owners to connect their car to a smartphone and operate certain functions such as locking/unlocking and remote start. There were online rumors that the Korean automaker is the victim of a ransomware cyberattack.
However, Kia in acknowledging a service outage denies reports of an attack. A company statement says it “has been experiencing an extended systems outage since Saturday but can confirm that the UVO app and owner’s portal are now operational. We anticipate remaining primary customer-facing affected systems will continue to come back online within the next 24-48 hours, with our most critical systems first in line. We apologize for the inconvenience to affected customers, especially those impacted by winter storms, who felt the outage of our remote start and heating feature most acutely. Kia is wholly focused on fully resolving this issue and would like to thank our customers for their continued patience.”
In addressing the ransomware rumors, Kia says “We are aware of online speculation that Kia is subject to a ransomware attack. At this time, and based on the best and most current information, we can confirm that we have no evidence that Kia or any Kia data is subject to a ransomware attack.”
Website BleepingComputer purports the situation is the work of “the DoppelPaymer gang.” The attackers claim to have copied data from Kia’s systems. They also demand $20 million to unlock the services. If they don’t get the money, they threaten to leak the data. This information could include some identity and payment information on Kia owners. However, there’s no proof that the gang has unencrypted data.
