Garmin Ransomware Attack: All Services Down For Hours (Now Revived)
Smart wearable devices manufacturing company Garmin has reportedly suffered a ransomware attack leading to shut down of all online services. The company’s GPS services are facing an outage worldwide, and if you’re using a Garmin device, you might be facing issues. All the services, including Garmin Connect, Garmin’s fitness tracking app, Garmin’s phone system, customer care, and email services, have been affected by the outage.
Soon after the outage, Garmin posted a message on Twitter informing users about the outage. However, as per the Taiwanese website iThome, the Garmin IT staff has sent a memo saying that the servers of the company have been compromised. According to some unconfirmed reports, Garmin has been attacked by WastedLocker ransomware.
WastedLocker ransomware is the latest strain believed to be developed by Evil Corp. – a group behind popular ransomware, including Bit Paymer and Dridex. Evil Corp. has a history of targeting US-based firms. While there are no concrete proofs to confirm that the outage happened due to a ransomware attack, Garmin has clarified that “maintenance” was the reason for the shutdown of services.
The unexpected maintenance lasted for 12 hours in Japan and India, and the website and other services are back online now. This further fuelled the speculations that a ransomware attack was the reason behind the lengthy outage of Garmin services.
Cybersecurity has emerged as one of the major issues for corporates. The recent Twitter hack has further proved that bad actors are keeping up with the security mechanisms, and companies need to invest more in securing user data and their digital resources.
