The Garmin outage has now lasted for multiple days, with its app, Garmin Connect, down and not allowing users to upload or connect to any of their data online - and the brand has finally commented.
TechRadar spoke to a Garmin representative who was unable to confirm whether ransomware was the reason for the outage - as has been widely reported - but directed us to a new Q&A and statement that sheds a small amount of light on the situation.
”Garmin is currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin services including Garmin Connect and Garmin Pilot.
“As a result of the outage, some features and services across these platforms are unavailable to customers. Additionally, our product support call centers are affected by the outage and as a result, we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats.
“We are working to restore our systems as quickly as possible and apologize for the inconvenience. Additional updates will be provided as they become available.”
Was any data lost?
Garmin has now published a Q&A on its site, confirming that its satellite messaging service inReach has not been affected, and that consumer data hasn’t been impacted.
Here are the question and answers in full:
Was any Garmin Connect customer data lost during the outage?
Although Garmin Connect is not accessible during the outage, activity and health and wellness data collected from Garmin devices during the outage is stored on the device and will appear in Garmin Connect once the user syncs their device.
I’m an inReach customer. Can I still use SOS and messaging during the outage?
inReach SOS and messaging remain fully functional and are not impacted by the outage. This includes the MapShare website and email reply page. The status for inReach can be found here.
I have a new Garmin product. When will I be able to pair it with Garmin Connect?
We are working as quickly as possible to restore Garmin Connect functionality. The status of Garmin Connect can be found here.
Was my data impacted as a result of the outage?
Garmin has no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information.
What has caused this outage?
Garmin has not commented officially on the reasons for the outage, but multiple sites have spoken to sources close to the matter and claiming to have direct knowledge of the incident, and all are pointing towards ransomware as the reason.
While ransomware can have a variety of forms, TechCrunch’s sources are stating that this is a strain that ’merely’ locks the system and encrypts them, before demanding a payment to unlock.
We’ve got an in-depth piece detailing all the information you need on the Garmin outage, and it’s important to note that Garmin itself has not commented or confirmed any hacks or attacks on its networks, only acknowledging the outage.
However, the longer its Garmin Connect app and associated systems are down, the more it points to a larger problem to solve.
You can check the status of Garmin’s Connect systems here - at the time of writing, every service was showing as ‘down’ as the brand struggles to get its services back online.
