A cyber outage at retail technology and software provider CDK entered its second consecutive day on Thursday, impacting automobile dealers across the United States, the affected companies said.

"The CDK outage is impacting automotive dealerships across the U.S. and Canada, including a portion of BMW Group dealers," a spokesperson for BMW North America told Reuters.

CDK told Reuters it was working to reinstate its services and get its dealers back to business "as quickly as possible".

The company, which provides software to car dealerships, briefly shut down all its systems on Wednesday, saying it was investigating a cyber incident.

CDK did not disclose the number of dealerships that were affected in its statement. But according to the company's website, it works with more than 15,000 retail locations across North America.

"Dealers are very committed to protecting their customer information and are actively seeking information from CDK to determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident so they can respond appropriately," the National Automobile Dealers Association said.

Privately owned vehicle dealer Holman also said the outage had impacted its phone system.

Investment firm Brookfield Business Partners bought CDK in April 2022 for $6.41 billion in a cash deal, taking the last major publicly traded provider of software to auto dealers and manufacturers private.

  - Reuters