Garmin Ltd said Saturday that client data from the company’s smartwatch and GPS services — offline since Thursday — has not been compromised, despite fears of a ransomware attack.

“Garmin has no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information,” the company said on its website.

It added: “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.”

Garmin Connect is a health and fitness tracker.

The group, based in Olathe, Kansas, said it was working to restore service as quickly as possible.

While Garmin has yet to explain the nature of the outage, specialized sites have speculated that the company fell victim to a so-called ransomware attack, in which hackers block a victim’s access to its own data unless a ransom is paid.

The company’s Garmin Pilot application, used by pilots to plan flights, has also been blocked, as has the flyGarmin aviation database service.

The outage has affected Garmin’s call centers, meaning the group is unable to respond to customers’ phone calls, emails or online chats.

Specialized website ZDNet reported that after the incident began early Thursday, “several Garmin employees took to social media to share details about the attack, all calling it a ransomware attack.”

It added: “ZDNet has interviewed several and confirmed their claims.”

Related Links

GPS Applications, Technology and Suppliers

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook – our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don’t have a paywall – with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

BeiDou adopted in unmanned farm machines in Xinjiang

Urumqi, China (SPX) Jul 21, 2020


The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has been adopted in more than 10,000 unmanned farm tractors and spraying drones in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to the regional agriculture and husbandry machinery administration.

Xinjiang has been promoting tractors, harvesters and other agricultural machinery equipped with BDS in recent years, and techniques such as precision sowing, fertilization, and pesticide spraying, based on the system to improve the working qual … read more