A devastating cyberattack against British luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors, has resulted in an estimated cost of $2.55 billion (£1.9 billion) to the UK economy, according to a report released Wednesday by the Cyber Monitoring Centre (CMC).

The attack forced a critical six-week production shutdown at JLR's three UK factories, which collectively produce approximately 1,000 cars daily. The cascading impact across the supply chain extended the disruption to more than 5,000 companies nationwide, including essential suppliers and dealerships.

Costliest cyber event on record in UK

The report, compiled by the independent CMC -- an expert group including a former head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre -- marks the JLR incident as the most expensive cyber event ever recorded in the UK.

The losses primarily stemmed from the halt in vehicle manufacturing and the subsequent impact on JLR's vast ecosystem of suppliers. Prior to production restarting earlier this month, the company was reportedly losing around £50 million every week.

The CMC, which uses a five-point scale to assess the financial impact of cybersecurity incidents, rated the JLR hack as a Category 3 systemic event, signifying major disruption to manufacturing, the supply chain, and national dealerships. Experts noted that the financial damage could have been even greater had JLR faced longer delays in recovery.

Government intervention and wider context

In response to the severe economic shock, the British government intervened by providing a loan guarantee of £1.5 billion at the end of September to support JLR and its affected suppliers during the recovery phase.

The attack on JLR is one of several major cyber incidents to hit key British companies this year. For context, the report cited the retailer Marks & Spencer, which recorded losses of approximately £300 million after its online services were forced to shut down for two months following a separate breach in April.