IT outage at Volkswagen: Volker Wissing warns of network security

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VW high-rise building in Wolfsburg: search for the cause of the malfunction

Photo: Moritz Frankenberg / dpa

The cause is not yet publicly known, but the effects were visible in the global Volkswagen cosmos. As a result of a network error, VW had to contend with a comprehensive production loss for hours from Wednesday. On Thursday morning, the all-clear was given. Now the plants are being ramped up again.

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) called for more sensitivity to the issue of network security in view of the disruption at VW. "We need security systems that work here," he told broadcasters RTL and ntv. If there are such malfunctions as at VW, this must be precisely analyzed. "It must be clear to everyone that digital infrastructures are critical infrastructures."

A crisis team set up by VW had been working all night to solve the problem. VW has not yet provided further details on the cause. However, there are still no signs that the disruption was caused by external influences, a spokesman said. One does not assume a hacker attack.

A network error had caused production in almost all plants to come to a standstill from the afternoon on Wednesday. These include all German locations of the core Volkswagen brand in Wolfsburg, Zwickau, Emden, Hanover, Osnabrück and Dresden. The component plants in Braunschweig, Salzgitter, Kassel and Chemnitz were also affected. Audi also reported problems.

Since Thursday morning, the group has been restarting its plants, including Wolfsburg and Zwickau. More should follow later today. "The IT infrastructure problems in the Volkswagen network could be fixed in the course of the night, the network is working stably again," said a spokesman. "The affected applications are currently being restarted. The global production network is starting, and production is to take place according to plan.«

Until the information systems return to normal operation, there could still be impairments in production. In Wolfsburg in particular, due to the size and complexity of the site, work is not yet being carried out at full capacity, it said.

"Since 10 a.m., we have been running again in series," said a spokesman for VW Commercial Vehicles in Hanover. "In Dresden, production is scheduled to start regularly at noon," said a spokesman for VW Saxony.

According to an IT service provider responsible for the companies' networks, it was a worldwide disruption. There were also problems in VW car dealerships, the dpa news agency was confirmed in dealer circles. According to reports, the US plant in Chattanooga in the state of Tennessee was also affected. According to a spokesman, there was no impact on Skoda in the Czech Republic.

Toyota has also had an IT problem

"Absolute priority" for the security of digital systems demanded the digital policy spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group, Jens Zimmermann. The "massive IT disruption at Volkswagen" shows the dependency and vulnerability of a digitally networked economy and society.

At the end of August, VW's rival Toyota was hit by a total failure. At the Japanese car company, technical problems had led to a complete loss of production in Japan for about a day. The culprit was an error in the system for managing parts ordering, it said. Later, insufficient storage space on servers was cited as the cause. The incident was not a cyber attack, Toyota had emphasized.

mmq/dpa