Garmin hit by massive outage after possible ransomware attack

Garmin’s fitness devices have gone offline for nearly a day after the company suffered a major outage, possibly caused by a ransomware attack. The outage first reported by Garmin more than 20 hours ago, as of this writing, affects Garmin handheld devices and applications, as well as Garmin call centers.

“We are currently experiencing an outage affecting Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive calls, emails or online chats, “the company wrote on Twitter and its Garmin Connect website.

Garmin Connect is the service that enables owners of Garmin devices like Forerunner smartwatches to obsessively track their running performance, for example. ZDNET He reports that flyGarmin, the navigation service that supports Garmin’s aviation devices, has also affected some pilots.

According to ZDNETGarmin was forced to shutdown a number of crucial services after a ransomware attack blocked some of the company’s production systems on its internal network. Although the company has not confirmed the attack, ZDNET He notes that several employees on Twitter and in interviews claim that the attack used a variety of ransomware called WastedLocker. An internal report by Garmin IT staff in Taiwan has reportedly been released by iThome, saying that Garmin factories in Taiwan will be idle for two days of maintenance to deal with the problem. The memorandum did not cite a cause, but sources speak to iThome He said the company was responding to a “virus”.