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Garmin suffers major Connect service outage (Update: Cyber attack confirmed)
Update: July 27, 2020 (02:20 PM ET): By now, most Garmin Connect users should see normal activity in regards to their wearable syncing. A previous outage, described in the article below, prevented many users from getting the full experience from Connect and even Garmin’s own site.
Now, Garmin has confirmed that the problem was due to a cyber attack. Earlier rumors (described below) alluded to this possibly being the case, but now we know it for certain. Garmin is still patching things up and hopes to have its systems back in full working order “over the next few days.”
Thankfully, this attack appears to have ended up as a service disruption and nothing more. According to the company, no private user data was accessed during the breach, which would include email addresses, financial data attached to Garmin Pay, and health activity data. Garmin says this sensitive information was untouched.
Going forward, Garmin expects there will be continued delays and issues with syncing and data management as their servers run through backlogged transfers. If you face any syncing problems at all, your best bet at the moment is to wait it out.
Original article: July 23, 2020 (03:58 PM ET): Having trouble getting your Garmin watch to sync with Garmin Connect? You’re not alone.
Early Thursday morning, Garmin experienced a major outage across its services, which is affecting the Garmin Connect mobile apps, website, and Garmin.com. The outage is also affecting Garmin’s call centers, meaning the company is unable to receive calls, emails, and online chats.
The company initially stated its servers were down for maintenance, though it soon followed up that comment with a more widespread service outage warning on Twitter.
We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin Connect, and as a result, the Garmin Connect website and mobile app are down at this time.— Garmin Fitness (@GarminFitness) July 23, 2020
What’s causing Garmin Connect to be offline? ZDNet reports, citing unnamed Garmin employees’ social feeds, the outage could be caused by a ransomware attack called WastedLocker. Neither ZDNet nor Android Authority can verify this information. We have reached out to Garmin for clarification.
IThome recently posted a supposedly leaked memo shared by Garmin’s IT staff to its Taiwan factories announcing scheduled maintenance from Friday, July 24 through Saturday, July 25. Thus, we can assume Garmin Connect will be down through the end of the week.
What can you do in the meantime? Stay calm! Most Garmin devices offer gigabytes worth of storage for past activities. Those will all likely sync without issue once Garmin Connect is up and running again. If you need your activities uploaded to the cloud ASAP, try connecting your Garmin device to your computer, download the .fit file, and upload manually to another service. Strava makes this process pretty seamless.
We’ll keep an eye on Garmin’s Connect status website for any updates in the next day or so, and we’ll update you if we hear back from Garmin on the matter.