Ransomware takes Garmin down for a few days

It has been a rough few days for the tech company. It appears as if Garmin was the subject of a reported ransomware attack. Starting last Wednesday, users have not been able to sync up to their favorite wearable.

The main service hit was Garmin Connect. This service is what athletes such as runners, swimmers, and others use to track their performance. Connect started seeing issues late on Wednesday and has just recently started being able to sync data from its users again. Garmin however, is still showing server maintenance on its status page. Garmin has assured everyone that there were no concerns over privacy, payment, or personal information.

New Ransomware

There is a new name for ransomware out there and its called WastedLocker. The creators of this new are known as Evil Corp (which sounds like something from Austin Powers). As of right now, it looks like that data is encrypted but not to the point where it can’t be brought back via a backup. There is a way to bring the data back without paying a ransom.

The concern

My concern is that they are just getting warmed up. This outage almost seemed like more of a test. Dealing with ransomware is a nightmare as a result of being locked out of your own machine. Having something foreign invade your network and lock everything down feel like a violation. I have gone through one of these a few years ago. Back then it was ‘Crypto Locker’ and what made it worse is they had their own customer service line. You could call up and they would accept your ransom digitally and were annoyingly polite about the whole thing.

Situations like these are a reminder that there is always someone out there thinking two steps ahead. As we do our best to make security even tighter with new programs there are people out there learning how to breach them.