Garmin confirms that it has been affected by ransomware attack

Garmin confirms that it was hit by a ransomware attack several days ago. As a result, Garmin Connect and other services were offline for about four days. There has been strong evidence of a ransomware attack before.

The statement, which Garmin also published on its own website, states that the company was hit by a cyber attack on July 23. Garmin writes that this caused many of the online systems to be interrupted, such as certain website features, customer support, and corporate communications.

According to Garmin, there are no indications that customer data has been accessed, captured or lost. This would also apply to payment information related to Garmin Pay. Garmin states that the activity and health data collected during the outage was stored on the Garmin devices. The company therefore believes that all data will reappear in Garmin Connect as soon as users sync their device again.

Garmin Connect, among others, is not yet running smoothly, so syncing a Garmin device with this service may still be limited, as shown by the status page. According to the company, the Garmin Connect recovery process has already started and previously it appeared that the Garmin services are partly back online, including ConnectIQ and vivofit Jr. Garmin emphasizes that its satellite communications service, inReach, is fully functional and has not been affected by the attack. Garmin Pilot Apps, flyGarmin, Connext Services and FltPlan.com are also fully operational.

The company says that the functionality of Garmin products was not affected and that the attack only negatively affected the ability to access or use online services. Systems that were affected are being restored and Garmin says it expects it to be back up to normal in a few days. There may be delays in the process of recovering affected systems; this is related to the processing of a backlog of information.

Garmin makes no mention of the type of ransomware it encountered, nor does it provide further details. Sources from BleepingComputer previously indicated that there was a ransomware attack, involving the WastedLocker ransomware. The website also showed pictures of allegedly encrypted files. The attack is said to have started at Garmin Taiwan and the attackers have reportedly demanded a $ 10 million ransom, although Garmin says nothing about that. As a result, it is still unknown whether ransom has been paid.