14 DAY TRIAL // Garmin is the most recent victim of ransomware attacks, with the company earlier today announcing that it’s taking some services offline, including call centers, the Garmin.com website and Garmin Connect.
flyGarmin, the company’s avigation database services, has also been pushed offline, according to various reports.
Garmin Connect is the service that allows Garmin customers to sync their wearables, and a notification showing up on devices where the app is installed indicates that “we’re down for maintenance, check back shortly.”
The official Garmin Twitter account posted a message to reveal that the company is trying to recover after an outage, but no further specifics were shared.
“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. 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,” Garmin says.
Ransomware attack?
While Garmin has avoided to share any information as to what caused the outage, Taiwanese site ITHome published what it claims to be a memo aimed at company employees at Taiwan factories. In the memo, Garmin’s leadership team announces two days of maintenance on Friday and Saturday, possibly to recover after the outage.
But the site claims that Garmin sources indicated the outage is the result of a ransomware infection that locked down some of the company’s computers. If this is the case, the services were taken offline until Garmin restores its backups on the impacted computers.
At the time of writing, Garmin’s services are still offline, and the company’s official website indicates that recovering after the outage is still a work in progress, with no ETA as to when everything could return to normal.