Garmin outage: Company confirms cyber attack as normal operation expected in next few days

Garmin has confirmed the Connect app outage was caused by a cyber attack.

The US-based GPS firm was hit by huge technical issues last Thursday (July 23) as customers found they were unable to use the Garmin Connect app to upload their rides to Strava and company communications went down.

Reports then emerged that Garmin had fallen victim to a ransomware attack and that hackers were demanding $10 million.

Some services came back online on Monday (July 27) and Garmin has said that normal operation is expected in the coming days.

The company also confirmed that it was the victim of a cyber attack the encrypted some of its systems on July 23.

This attack pulled down a number of online services, including the Connect app, customer support services and company communications.

Garmin said there is no indication that any customer data, including payment information, has been accessed, lost or stolen.

A statement from Garmin said: “Garmin Ltd  today announced it was the victim of a cyber attack that encrypted some of our systems on July 23, 2020. As a result, many of our online services were interrupted including website functions, customer support, customer facing applications, and company communications. We immediately began to assess the nature of the attack and started remediation. We have no indication that any customer data, including payment information from Garmin Pay™, was accessed, lost or stolen. Additionally, the functionality of Garmin products was not affected, other than the ability to access online services.”

The statement added: “Affected systems are being restored and we expect to return to normal operation over the next few days. We do not expect any material impact to our operations or financial results because of this outage. As our affected systems are restored, we expect some delays as the backlog of information is being processed. We are grateful for our customers’ patience and understanding during this incident and look forward to continuing to provide the exceptional customer service and support that has been our hallmark and tradition.”

As of 10am on Tuesday morning, Garmin was still facing some technical issues with its online services.

Garmin Connect activities details and uploads are back up and running, but there are still issues with the Courses feature, Challenges and Connections, and Daily Summary.

Garmin Coach is reporting delays, ConnectIQ is not installing apps and some stats on vivofit Jr may be delayed.

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Activities being uploaded to Strava may still be delayed due the backlog caused by the outage.