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GM Dealer Infrastructure and Security Guidelines (DISG), explained: the PC, network, Wi-Fi, and bandwidth specs, plus GM’s 72-hour incident reporting rule.

AI legal risks for dealerships come from old laws meeting new tools: privacy, FTC deception, AI calls and lending. Where they show up and the guardrails to set.

The FTC Safeguards Rule notification requirement gives a dealership 30 days from discovery to report a breach to the FTC when unencrypted customer information on 500 or more consumers is acquired without authorization. It’s been in force since May 13, 2024. Day one of a breach, nobody at the store is thinking about a federal … Read more

FTC Safeguards Rule requirements for dealerships, explained: the nine elements of 16 CFR 314.4, the 30-day breach notice, and what stores under 5,000 can skip.

A DMS conversion checklist is the IT plan for moving a dealership from one dealer management system to another. It runs in three phases: the device, network, access, and data work before go-live, the cutover itself, and the training and cleanup after go-live. Early in my career I worked in a three-person IT department supporting … Read more

The Motility breach proved that a truck dealer’s DMS vendor is part of the dealer’s own attack surface. Ransomware hit the Reynolds-owned dealer software provider in August 2025, exposed data on 766,670 people, and ended in a $4.95 million class settlement. Picture the letter. It isn’t from a hacker. It’s from your software company, and … Read more

Tekion network requirements come down to three things your dealership owns: business-grade internet with automatic failover at every rooftop, cabling and Wi-Fi that reach every device Tekion installs, and security controls in place before customer data moves. Tekion’s implementation team installs and tests its own hardware. The electrical work, the data cabling, and the sign-off … Read more

Choosing a managed IT provider for a dealership isn’t the same decision as choosing one for a law firm or a retail chain. Dealership operations run on a DMS, get audited under FTC Safeguards, and can’t afford downtime during a sales event or a service rush. That means the providers who actually understand this industry … Read more

Karmak bought DSI Solutions, the company behind the Blaze DMS, in a deal effective September 30, 2025, and now holds more than half of the DMS market among PACCAR dealers. Blaze is still sold and supported. Moving to Fusion is a choice, and it’s an IT project before it’s a software project. I sold CRM … Read more