Garmin has been ordered to pay the ransom by the cybercriminal group headed by a 33-year-old Russian playboy hacker, Maksim Yakubets, who drives a customized $250,000 Lamborghini.
In December 2019, the FBI placed a $5 million bounty on Yakubets head leading for information to his capture. It is the largest reward being offered for an alleged criminal connected to cybercrime.
Yakubets' latest target is Garmin who have still offered no explanation for their outage, but security analysts said the reason is likely ransomware, a technique used by hackers to encrypt data and extort funds.
Garmin issue
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/n ... ld-ground/Pilots using the flyGarmin app may be forced to ground their aircraft after a suspected ransomware attack against the smart device maker appeared to take out key services.
As of Thursday evening EDT, flight plan filing, account syncing and database concierge capabilities were down in the Garmin Pilot app, according to a service outage update from Garmin. Data from the on-board Central Maintenance Computer (CMC) was also unavailable.
“We are currently experiencing an outage that affects flyGarmin and as a result, the flyGarmin website and mobile app are down at this time,” it noted. “This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unavailable to receive any emails or chats, but do have limited availability for calls. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.”
The outage seems to have affected the entire firm, which also produces fitness trackers, smart watches and other wearables.
It said the Garmin Connect website and mobile app are also down.