If there was ever a doubt about how bad hacking attacks can get, just look at the latest report from Garmin regarding their hack and a ransomware attack on them. It is known that Garmin has been attacked by ransomware named WannaCry and it is a company-wide one meaning that services have been down from a while. We have heard that the services have been down from last five days since the attack took place last Friday or earlier than that.
Now, we know that the attacks can be bad but they are really bad if they happen to a technology company that tracks user locations as well as their running and exercise data on a daily basis. Garmin users having their Fenix smartwatches are stuck in a loop where their watches just show a “Saving” message and nothing else meaning they are boot looping due to no response from the server. It is possible to restore the services on your Fenix watch but you need to reset your device for that.
Essentially, as ZDNet calls it, the Garmin Fenix users have come down to just wearing “a pricey brick on your wrist”. This is because the watch can’t collect location data so as to track the runs or do any calculations whatsoever or even connect to GPS in order to guide them for their route. In addition, the report claims that apart from GPS, Garmin’s watches are not even able to track indoor activities that require just sensors which means that it just shows you time right now.
This is Garmin’s response if you go to their Connect Status page right now:
“We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centres, 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”.
Moreover, all the Garmin services are marked as “Down” from quite a few days now meaning the ransomware attack has totally disrupted order inside the company. One unconfirmed report even mentioned that Garmin has paid $10 million in this ransomware attack but if that was the case, their services would have been restored which doesn’t seem to be the case right now.
