Garmin Online Services Reportedly Hit With Ransomware Attack in demand for $10 Million

Ransomware attacks are on the rise, and Garmin is the latest big name to take a hit.

A hacker group called Evil Corp demanded $10m from the GPS giant in the latest high-profile ransomware attack. The feds have been chasing Evil Corp for months.

Garmin said Garmin Connect, garmin.com, and even its call centers were hit.

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. (1/2)

— Garmin (@Garmin) July 23, 2020

An ongoing global outage at sport and fitness tech giant Garmin  was caused by a ransomware attack, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the incident.

The incident began late Wednesday and continued through the weekend, causing disruption to the company’s online services for millions of users.

In a brief update on Saturday, Garmin said it had “no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information.”

The two sources told TechCrunch that Garmin was trying to bring its network back online after the ransomware attack. One of the sources confirmed that the WastedLocker ransomware was to blame for the outage.

Ransomware attacks have occurred with increasing regularity in the last several years. After gaining access to a computer system through a vulnerability or social engineering, ransomware attackers encrypt important files. They demand heavy payment to provide the decryption key.