UK car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover has temporarily ceased all car production in all its factories in Solihull, Halewood, Wolverhampton or Castle Bromwich following a cyber-attack.

Some workers have been sent home, while others were told to stay on to carry out routine maintenance. Production has also been suspended in Slovakia, China, India and Brazil.

JLR normally makes around a thousand cars a day, most of them in the UK, where it employs 32,000 people.

The cyber-attack has forced the company to shut down all its IT systems, saying it is working on a “controlled restart”, but right now it is struggling to order parts, book shipments for exports and to register new vehicles with the DVLA — a situation that means JLR is unable to sell brand-new cars, since they must be registered before they can be legally driven on UK roads.

Given everything else going on in the industry – the shift to electrification and Trump’s tariffs – it’s the last thing JLR needs. The longer these lasts, the more likely it is that government will have to step in to support JLR’s suppliers.”

The company hasn’t formally approached the government for help. Nor has it said who was behind the hack, how the attackers got in, or what they accessed.

In a statement JLR said: “At this stage there is no evidence any customer data has been stolen, but our retail and production activities have been severely disrupted. We are working with law enforcement agencies.”

A group of hackers who previously targeted Marks and Spencer have claimed responsibility for the cyber-attack, but it cannot be immediately verified.