Direct cost of Jaguar Land Rover cyber attack revealed

The cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which halted production for nearly six weeks at its sites, cost the company roughly £200m, it has been revealed.

Latest accounts released on Friday showed "cyber-related costs" were £196m, which does not include the fall in sales. Profits took a nose dive, falling from nearly £400m (£398m) a year ago to a loss of £485m in the three months to the end of September.

Money blog: Apple launches £220 iPhone 'sock' today - fans are divided Revenues dropped nearly 25% and the effects may continue as the manufacturing halt could slow sales in the final three months of the year, executives said. The impact of the shutdown also hit factories across the car-making supply chain.

Slowing the UK economy The production pause was a large contributor to a contraction in UK economic growth in September, official figures showed. Had car output not fallen 28.6%, the UK economy would have grown by 0.1% during the month.

Instead, it fell by 0.1%. Read more from Sky News:Telegraph future in limbo again as RedBird abandons £500m deal Reacting to JLR's impact on the GDP contraction, its chief financial officer, Richard Molyneux, said it was "interesting to hear" and it "goes to reinforce" that JLR is really important in the UK economy.

The company, he said, is the "biggest exporter of goods in the entire country" and the effect on GDP "is a reflection of the success JLR has had in past years". Recovery The company said operations were "pretty much back running as normal" and plants were "at or approaching capacity".

Production of all luxury vehicles resumed. Investigations are underway into the attack, with law enforcement in "many jurisdictions" involved, the company said.

When asked about the cause of the hack and the hackers, JLR said it was not in a position to answer questions due to the live investigation. A run of attacks The manufacturer was just one of a number of major companies to be seriously impacted by cyber criminals in recent months.

High street retailer Marks and Spencer estimated the cost of its IT outage was roughly £136m. The sum only covers the cost of immediate incident systems response and recovery, as well as specialist legal and professional services support.

The Co-Op and Harrods also suffered service disruption caused by cyber attacks. Four people were arrested by police investigating the incidents..