Will Garmin Pay $10m Ransom To End Two-Day Outage?

Garmin is reportedly being asked to pay a $10 million ransom to free its systems from a cyberattack that has taken down many of its services for two days.

The navigation company was hit by a ransomware attack on Thursday, leaving customers unable to log fitness sessions in Garmin apps and pilots unable to download flight plans for aircraft navigation systems, among other problems. The company’s communication systems have also been taken offline, leaving it unable to respond to disgruntled customers.

Garmin employees have told BleepingComputer that the company was struck down by the WastedLocker ransomware. Screenshots sent to BleepingComputer show long lists of the company’s files encrypted by the malware, with a ransom note attached to each file.

The ransom note tells the recipient to email one of two email addresses to “get a price for your data”. That price, Garmin’s sources have told BleepingComputer, is $10 million.

Crippled Garmin

The ransomware attack has crippled many of the company’s systems. Reports claim that Garmin’s IT department shut down all of the company’s computers, including those of employees working from home who were connected by VPN, to halt the spread of the ransomware across its network.

Garmin’s Taiwan factories have reportedly closed production lines yesterday and today while the company attempts to unpick the ransomware.

The shutdown is having a big effect on Garmin’s customers. DownDetector reveals a huge spike today in people having trouble accessing Garmin Connect, the app that logs fitness routines for the company’s devices. More people are likely to be using such devices at the weekend.

DownDetector shows how Garmin customers continue to be affected

DownDetector

The problem is even more serious for Garmin’s aviation device customers. Pilots have told ZDNet that they are unable to download a version of Garmin’s aviation database onto their airplane navigation systems, which is an FAA requirement.

Garmin has issued very little public comment about the problem. On Thursday, the company issued a tweet saying “we are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin Connect,” adding that the outage “also affects our call centers and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats”.

Garmin has been approached for comment, but as you can appreciate from the statement above, that’s somewhat complicated…

Comments

Ransomware's Dangerous New Trick Is Double-Encrypting Your Data

Ransomware groups have always taken a more-is-more approach . If a victim pays a ransom and then goes back to business as usual-hit them again. Or don’t just encrypt a target’s systems; steal their data first, so you can threaten to leak it if they don’t pay up. The latest escalation? Ransomware hackers who encrypt a victim’s data twice at the same time. Double-encryption attacks have happened before, usually stemming from two separate ransomware gangs compromising the same victim at the same time. But antivirus company Emsisoft says it is aware of dozens of incidents in which the same actor or group intentionally layers two types of ransomware on top of each other. “The groups are constantly trying to work out which strategies are best , which net them the most money for the least amount of effort,” says Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow. “So in this approach you have a single actor deploying two types of ransomware. The victim decrypts their data and discovers it’s not act...

Babuk ransomware is back, uses new version on corporate networks

After announcing their exit from the ransomware business in favor of data theft extortion, the Babuk gang appears to have slipped back into their old habit of encrypting corporate networks. The criminals are currently using a new version of their file-encrypting malware and have moved the operation to a new leak site that lists a handful of victims. Gang’s still in the game The Babuk ransomware group became known at the beginning of the year but the gang says that their attacks had started in mid-October 2020, targeting companies across the world and demanding ransoms typically between $60,000 and $85,000 in bitcoin cryptocurrency. In some cases, victims were asked hundreds of thousands for data decryption. One of their most publicized victims is the Washinton DC’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). This attack likely pushed the threat actor into announcing its retirement from the ransomware business only to adopt another extortion model that did not include encryption....

Microsoft Teams Phishing Attack Targets Office 365 Users

Up to 50,000 Office 365 users are being targeted by a phishing campaign that purports to notify them of a “missed chat” from Microsoft Teams. Researchers are warning of a phishing campaign that pretends to be an automated message from Microsoft Teams. In reality, the attack aims to steal Office 365 recipients’ login credentials. Teams is Microsoft’s popular collaboration tool, which has particularly risen in popularity among remote workforces during the pandemic — making it an attractive brand for attackers to impersonate. This particular campaign was sent to between 15,000 to 50,000 Office 365 users, according to researchers with Abnormal Security on Thursday. “Because Microsoft Teams is an instant-messaging service, recipients of this notification might be more apt to click on it so that they can respond quickly to whatever message they think they may have missed based on the notification,” said researchers in a Thursday analysis . The initial phishing email displays the name ...

Teknologiia News

Search This Blog