Garmin Connect Down?

[Zed43]

Not quite up and running. While I can now login to connect.garmin.com it gives me "Looks Like Our Laces Came Undone We will be back up and running in a few moments."

[Greenbank]

My 945 has synced to my phone which has synced to Garmin's servers. I can now see data from the last 4 days on my phone.

As Zed43 says above, the website is not quite back yet.

As I said elsewhere, Garmin should come back stronger from this. They'll be a considerable backlash against the reliance on Garmin's servers and they'll be removing some of those and strengthening their IT practices (including Disaster Recovery).

[simonp]

My motorcycle GPS (BMW but it's a rebadged Garmin) has a (Garmin) phone app which it connects to for traffic info, rather than using the phone as a hotspot like anyone sensible would do. So, you need to remember to open the app before every ride, or no traffic info. Very silly.

Sensible design decisions.   < -------------------------------------------------------------- a very long way -------------------------------------------------------------- > Garmin.

[Polar Bear]

Looks like they are almost back to normal now. 

The only thing that I need to consider is whether to use Strava as a backup of Garmin and vice versa. 

[orienteer]

Can't update my Garmin car satnav - "Server problems"

[Greenbank]

Looks like they are almost back to normal now. 

Garmin Connect website seems a lot faster than it usually is. Guess there are just fewer people using it at the moment as it hasn't been back up long.

Just back from a gentle 10k and it synced to my phone with no problems and appeared on the website. All of the data from the last 4 days (24/7 HR, Pulse Ox, steps, etc) is all there too.

[simonp]

I’m back now. Including yesterday’s TrainerRoad workout which has synced.

[Beardy]

Looks like they are almost back to normal now. 

The only thing that I need to consider is whether to use Strava as a backup of Garmin and vice versa.

Given that it’s just a setting and everything else is automatic, the only consideration is whether to share your data with another evil corp.

[citoyen]

Before I started using Garmin/Strava, I was using Endomondo. That seems to be still going, so is another option if you prefer their flavour of evil (looks like it is now owned by UnderArmour, who also own myfitnesspal).

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

Before I started using Garmin/Strava, I was using Endomondo. That seems to be still going, so is another option if you prefer their flavour of evil (looks like it is now owned by UnderArmour, who also own myfitnesspal).

UnderArmour also own MapMyRun

[simonp]

Speculation that they have the decryption key, i.e. they paid up:

https://news.sky.com/story/garmin-obtains-decryption-key-after-ransomware-attack-12036761

[Beardy]

Speculation that they have the decryption key, i.e. they paid up:

https://news.sky.com/story/garmin-obtains-decryption-key-after-ransomware-attack-12036761

you hardly need to speculate. There’s no way they’ve been able to decrypt AES256 in 4 days and it wouldn’t have taken them 4 days to renew service if they’d had a proper disaster recovery protocol in place.

[Kim]

I dunno, there's also the possibility that they had backups, but not a procedure for restoring from them...

[Beardy]

I dunno, there's also the possibility that they had backups, but not a procedure for restoring from them...

ive thought about that, but can’t really see them restoring from backups if they’ve not got a DR in place. It’d take them a week to specify a quick and dirty infra spec.

[tonycollinet]

Or they had dr in place, but just not very good so didn't work as well as it should.

Actually a very likely scenario - proper testing of DR is nigh on impossible.

[tonycollinet]

In other news - though the app is still werriting about server maintainance, it has just synced 6 days of rides.


Kind of renders this joke redundant:

what's the difference between a Garmin and the Titanic, the Titanic will sync

[Greenbank]

Or they had dr in place, but just not very good so didn't work as well as it should.

Actually a very likely scenario - proper testing of DR is nigh on impossible.

Or they had DR in place and it too got infected by the same ransomware. Most places just implement DR as a kind of flailover. One side goes down so they bring up the DR solution and it flailsover due for exactly the same reasons (load/bugs/etc).

(I'm just about to be on the end of another round of BCP works as we recently had a hardware failure in a build server. The current BCP docs state that the IT dept could have a replacement machine up and running in 48 hours - it was more than 3 weeks due to the problems of getting an engineer on site during Covid-19 lockdown. To be fair to them, they did start out trying to fix the old machine as they said that should be quick, it was only after 2 and a bit weeks [and the pressure building] that I asked them if it would be easier to restore the machine from backup as a VM and that was up and running within said 48 hours.)

[andyoxon]

So what is the most effective defence against these encryption attacks?  What would Garmin do now to prevent being hit again next week frinstance?

[Greenbank]

Better Corporate IT Security and practices.
Diverse IT platforms.
Management that understand that these mitigations will cost large chunks of money.
Eradictating human employees.

The ransomware shouldn't have got in in the first place.
If it did get in it shouldn't have been able to attack so many systems.
If it does attack a system then it should be quick/simple to return to a backup of that system that was not infected.

All of which has a large CapEx cost and a relatively large ongoing OpEx cost that doesn't much visible benefit during normal operation. Hence the need to have budget for this even though it looks like it may never happen.

[Beardy]

Better Corporate IT Security and practices.
Diverse IT platforms.
Management that understand that these mitigations will cost large chunks of money.
Eradictating human employees.

The ransomware shouldn't have got in in the first place.
If it did get in it shouldn't have been able to attack so many systems.
If it does attack a system then it should be quick/simple to return to a backup of that system that was not infected.

All of which has a large CapEx cost and a relatively large ongoing OpEx cost that doesn't much visible benefit during normal operation. Hence the need to have budget for this even though it looks like it may never happen.

In that respect it’s a lot like pandemic planning and preparation.

[Greenbank]

GC is still not completely working yet.

I couldn't get an interval workout onto my 945.

I could modify the workout on the GC website and see those changes relfected in the workout on my phone after a sync.
I could also schedule the workout for today on the GC website and see it in the calendar on my phone.

But no amount of syncing/rejigging/etc would make the workout or the calendar entry appear on the watch. Usually it's available under Training -> Workouts but there was nothing but a "Sync with GC for workouts to appear here" or similar. Also when it's scheduled for a specific day in the calendar then going to start an activity is enough for it to say "Do you want to do activity BLAH?".

Luckily it was just a warm up then 6 x 800m at 5:15/km pace with a 90s walking recovery after each, then a cool down jog home. Easy enough to do manually by just looking at the lap page (which I have setup to display lap distance, lap time and pace) and willing time to go faster than it does normally.

Thankfully my intervals aren't ever trickier than that although with more than 6 I may end up losing count accidentally on purpose but I guess it'll get sorted out by the next interval session in a week's time.

[Greenbank]

Ah, seems they know about it and, quelle horreur, even admit workout syncing is not working:

https://connect.garmin.com/status/

[De Sisti]

Here's a link that suggests Garmin paid the ransom.


http://news.sky.com/story/garmin-paid-m ... s-12041468

[Polar Bear]

I'm not particularly bothered to be honest.  Garmin has to keep it's huge customer and user base onside and needs to return to business as usual as quickly as possible.   I expected them to pay.

What this is a stark reminder of though for both tech companies and their customers is that the data is never 100% secure.  Who knows how close the hackers got for instance to Garmin Pay information?  Who knows how close they got to customer details including for instance payment information where customers buy services directly from Garmin.

I still expect there to be a huge bank hack at some point proving that our reliance upon online banking and contactless payments only increases our risk of personal fraud and potential loss.

Hopefully Garmin and all their competitors will be working extra hard to protect and secure their systems going forward.

[Beardy]

Looks like Garmin Connect is down again, which is going to be a major embarrassment for Garmin.