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Garmin likely hit by ransomware attack

Garmin is expected to be down until Sunday, but runners can upload to Strava manually

Photo by: Matt Stetson

After two days, users are still unable to access Garmin’s services. According to Forbes, the company is being held hostage and asked to pay a $10 million ransom in order for Garmin to resume normal operations. Their website is currently displaying the following message: “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.” 

To minimize the impact of this ransomware attack, Garmin Connect was quickly shut down worldwide.

It’s not known whether any customer data was compromised during the outage, which flummoxed athletes all over the world Thursday as they attempted to upload their activity.

On Saturday the brand posted an FAQ on its site, indicating that their device would store their activity for uploading once the site is functional again. Garmin inReach satellite customers are not affected by the outage.

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Garmin has not said when the app will be back up. An internal memo leaked by a Taiwanese tech news site says there will be two days of maintenance, though this has not been confirmed by the brand. 

Fortunately, it’s possible to upload your activity to Strava manually, bypassing Garmin Connect. Here’s how:

Plug your Garmin into your computer using the USB you use to charge it. Navigate to Devices on Finder and click on your Garmin (Mac) or on the Garmin device under your File Explorer (PC). Click on the Activity folder and find the .fit file for today’s activity.

Go to Strava.com, click the + button at the top right corner, click Upload Activity, then File on the left. 

 

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