[ UPDATE 28/07/2020 17:25 ] Garmin has issued an official statement on the cyber attack. More details here.
===
Garmin users, you might have had issues over the past few days with the Garmin Connect app—and now, we know why. Garmin’s Connect services have been experiencing an outage since last Thursday, with the company initially explaining it as a maintenance issue. However, that has escalated, with the company sharing over Twitter that the outage affects the Garmin Connect website and mobile app—and more.
According to an official statement, Garmin explained that the outage has also affected product call centres, which means that online chats, calls, and even emails are unavailable currently.
What’s going on?
BleepingComputer reports that the worldwide outage has been caused by a ransomware attack known as WastedLocker. According to the report, the ransomware was first discovered on Thursday morning, with Garmin then remotely shutting down computers on their network.
This drastic move eventually led to the global outage that users are now experiencing, with services still down at the time of writing. Ransomware, for the uninitiated, is a form of malware where attackers demand ransoms—often huge sums—from victims to “release” infected networks.
And the culprits behind the Garmin attack, according to Bleeping Computer, is a Russian-based cybergroup known as Evil Corp. A ransom demand of USD10 million (~RM45,520,000) has reportedly been issued to Garmin, although paying the ransom could potentially violate certain U.S. laws, Bleeping Computer says.
In the meantime, Garmin assures customers that the company’s wide range of wearables still work in tracking health/fitness data—although data will be stored locally, with sync unavailable still. Regarding privacy concerns, which are natural at this stage, the company says:
“Garmin has no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information.”
For now, the full range of services and features that are down are listed here:
- Garmin Connect
- Garmin Dive
- vivofit Jr.
- Garmin Golf
- ConnectIQ
- LiveTrack
- Activity Details & Uploads
- Courses
- Dashboard
- Garmin Coach
- Reports
- Strava
- Wellness Sync
- Challenges & Connections
- Daily Summary
- Device Registration
- Incident Detection & Assistance
- Segments
- Third Party Sync
- Workouts
We have also reached out to representatives of Garmin Malaysia for more information, and will update this post accordingly. To stay updated on the status of Garmin’s services, click here. For BleepingComputer‘s full report, click here.
