Garmin Systems Knocked Offline; Early Reports Suggest Targeted Cyber-Attack

Garmin, the GPS navigation and wearable technology manufacturer, has reportedly suffered a large-scale ransomware attack that crippled its infrastructure.

Yesterday, the company tweeted that all of its Garmin Connect services are down.

“We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin Connect, and as a result, the Garmin Connect website and mobile app are down at this time,” the tweet reads. “This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.”

Since the announcement, Garmin users have nervously flocked to the company”s Twitter page, asking for updates, and speculating about a targeted cyber-attack.

Garmin has yet to provide any updates regarding the unscheduled “maintenance” of their systems. However, according to a Taiwanese media outlet, the outage will also extend to Garmin”s production lines, which will be offline for 2 days (July 24-25).

The report by iThome says Garmin employees were told that a virus attacked one of the company”s servers, and that the entire production line could not be opened. Although Garmin has not confirmed the speculation, users are becoming restless, and some have even expressed their worry regarding the safety of their personal data:

“Hopefully it’s just an outage and not a hack/breach, since it’s taking so long to recover.”

“It would be nice to have an update. If it is an attack it would be nice to know if users could be targeted trough your apps? Should we worry?”

“Sooooo is this a ransomware attack? Does an unauthorized party now have access to our personal data?”

“Any word if any personal information was stolen in the attack? I have no worries with it being down as long as data and payment information wasn’t stolen.”

Hopefully, Garmin officials will update their statements in coming days. Taking into consideration the long downtime and lack of details provided by the company, a ransomware attack can”t be excluded.