No longer content with simply stealing data, hackers now want to shut down companies.

It’s slipped under the radar of the Australian news cycle, but right now Jaguar Land Rover is in chaos.

Britain’s second largest car manufacturer has had a network taken offline by cyber criminals.

Thousands of workers have been told to stay home on reduced pay.

All manufacturing plants are shut worldwide, and suppliers are going broke.

Oxford professor Ciaran Martin warns hackers are no longer acting as thieves but as thugs.

“It is the physical equivalent of being beaten up and having limbs broken, you can’t go on as normal and it is devastating for companies,” Martin told 7NEWS podcast The Issue.

“It is frankly an easier way to pressure companies into giving them the money that they seek.”

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