Garmin is Down

On Thursday morning our MRTT chapter leader posted to our Facebook group that Garmin Connect was down and to not waste time trying to sync our watches to our apps. I dismissed it as a minor inconvenience and promptly forgot to take a picture of my watch screen after my workout, just in case…

According to Tech Crunch the incident began late Wednesday and according to my Garmin Connect app and Garmin’s website, it’s still an ongoing issue.

Garmin Connect on my phone…

 

Garmin’s website…

 

Ransomware Attack

Multiple online source are reporting that the outage is the result of a ransomware attack where hackers are demanding a $10 million payment before it will unlock the system; however, Garmin is only saying that there is an outage and hasn’t confirmed an attack.

In the meantime, it’s important to be aware of what information Garmin may have about you that could now be in the hands of nefarious people. Does someone other than Garmin now have access to your name and birth date, address, user name and password that you might use elsewhere? Do you have a credit card on file for any sort of subscription?

 

Putting a Light Touch on a Serious Situation

If indeed the reporting is true and Garmin was hacked, it’s a very serious situation; however, it never hurts to have a little fun at our own expense. I’ve seen several cute memes posted making fun of our dependency on our Garmin devices. Here are three of my favorites…

 

Hoping for the Best

Perhaps this is only a minor inconvenience to you or me, but to Garmin this is a huge and very serious situation. Whether or not to pay ransom is a hotly debated topic and often, even after the payment, the withheld goods/information are not released. Whether or not Garmin has a way to work around this is yet to be seen, but I only wish them the best as they work through this issue.

Let’s hope this can be resolved quickly and we’re back to gathering every little detail from our workouts again soon. If not, get your pens and paper ready.

 

Questions:
  • • If you use Garmin, when did you first notice the problem?
  • • Do you depend solely on gadgets and technology or do you also keep a written log of your workouts?
  • • Who remembers driving your car around to determine how far you would be running and using a Timex watch to time your run? 🙋🏼‍♀️