Garmin $10mil Ransom Carry Paper Map/Compass

[Sytes]

This is a reason to always carry a paper map and compass... Regardless the company, this is the curent high $ crime. Forget Bonnie & Clyde bank jobs.

Will Garmin Pay $10 Million Ransom To End Two-Day Outage?

Garmin is reportedly being asked to pay a $10 million ransom to free its systems from a cyberattack that has taken down many of its services for two days.

www.forbes.com

 

[OwyheeHuntr]

This is a reason to always carry a paper map and compass... Regardless the company, this is the curent high $ crime. Forget Bonnie & Clyde bank jobs.

Will Garmin Pay $10 Million Ransom To End Two-Day Outage?

Garmin is reportedly being asked to pay a $10 million ransom to free its systems from a cyberattack that has taken down many of its services for two days.

www.forbes.com

Been trying to activate a Garmin inreach mini for 4 days...ended up picking up a Spot X instead, but you're right always carry paper maps and a compass...

 

[rustednuts]

all of this is solved with backups... but since it is in the cloud you don’t need backups.....

 

[TriStar Hunt]

This is a reason to always carry a paper map and compass... Regardless the company, this is the curent high $ crime. Forget Bonnie & Clyde bank jobs.

Completely agree! It’s an inconvenient reminder that the tech in our pocket is not as reliable as magnetic north.

 

[WyoDoug]

I tested my Garmin and it works fine. I still have my paper backups of maps for my hunting area along with a compass and protractor.

 

[406LIFE]

Completely agree! It’s an inconvenient reminder that the tech in our pocket is not as reliable as magnetic north.

Except it moves towards Russia 30 miles every year. Maybe Putin has a hand in that, too...

 

[WapitiBob]

This has nothing to do with gps satellites.

 

[MO Betta]

Backups, Backups, Backups. Onsite, offsite, physical media. Wipe, restore and flip them the bird. Rarely do I find companies that have a proper secutity & DLP/DR setup, until after something like this happens. No one wants to open the purse strings for the IT department until then.

 

[LopeHunter]

Backups, Backups, Backups. Onsite, offsite, physical media. Wipe, restore and flip them the bird. Rarely do I find companies that have a proper secutity & DLP/DR setup, until after something like this happens. No one wants to open the purse strings for the IT department until then.

Truer words have not been spoken. I have watched the same small company burned 4x in 10 years, reload from last backup to new gear and each time realize had gaps in the files backed up so some important files and profiles lost. Labor plus gear cost close to $100K each time and value of lost files/productivity easily worth that or more each time. Yes, around $4K a month for a decade if amortize.

 

[Sytes]

This has nothing to do with gps satellites.

It's a modern day reality that dead batteries, misplaced inreach, spot or other item, drop damage are aspects the hiker may cause. This modern threat identifies outside threats easily prevented by carrying map/compass as well.
This happened to be another reason, I hadn't considered, to always carry a backup plan.

To each his/her own of course.

 

[noharleyyet]

Do e-criminals ever get caught? Blows my mind...

 

[MO Betta]

@noharleyyet Rarely.

 

[WyoDoug]

It's a modern day reality that dead batteries, misplaced inreach, spot or other item, drop damage are aspects the hiker may cause. This modern threat identifies outside threats easily prevented by carrying map/compass as well.
This happened to be another reason, I hadn't considered, to always carry a backup plan.

To each his/her own of course.

You also have to consider this: How many are actually competent in reading topographic maps. Yanno they don't have street names and in many situations there are no signs either. My bet is those without certain military backgrounds that gave them field experience are not competent enough to get around with topographic maps in the wilderness, national forest, BLM or other areas that do not have roads to go by.

 

[Nameless Range]

Most large companies have plans in place to deal with Ransomware attacks. Depending on the data and severity, the plan is often to just pay up. Though, this is a pretty high bill.

 

[WyoDoug]

Most large companies have plans in place to deal with Ransomware attacks. Depending on the data and severity, the plan is often to just pay up. Though, this is a pretty high bill.

The problem is you pay up you get hit again. I would not pay this ransom. Most large companies do daily backups and it is usually a matter of taking computers off-line and doing restorations.

 

[406dn]

You also have to consider this: How many are actually competent in reading topographic maps. Yanno they don't have street names and in many situations there are no signs either. My bet is those without certain military backgrounds that gave them field experience are not competent enough to get around with topographic maps in the wilderness, national forest, BLM or other areas that do not have roads to go by.

I think this is very true. A good number of years ago I was quite surprised at how poorly a friend of mine could read a map. He is a smart guy but not with maps. The map was a block management map and I would have thought a child could have read it.

 

[MThuntr]

They must have paid something because my watch sync'd this morning. Their Connect app says they are running maintenance.

 

[WyoDoug]

They must have paid something because my watch sync'd this morning. Their Connect app says they are running maintenance.

Doubt it. Odds are their IT unit did a backup restore. It does not pay for big companies to pay ransom. It's much cheaper to do off-site daily backups. More than half the time if you DID pay the ransom, the damage to your data is so severe you can't use it anyways. I should add that the employee(s) who compromised the system by clicking links in their email on official work systems SHOULD be severely reprimanded. Nearly all companies that rely on hi-tech systems regularly warn against phishing attacks which is likely what happened initially.

 

[MO Betta]

Doubt it. Odds are their IT unit did a backup restore. It does not pay for big companies to pay ransom. It's much cheaper to do off-site daily backups. More than half the time if you DID pay the ransom, the damage to your data is so severe you can't use it anyways.

Correct. If they even send a valid key for decryption once you pay. Generally you send a file encrypted by them to be unlocked and sent back to you as a "proof of life" before you pay, but still no guarantees after that. Garmin probably runs more servers and VMs than most anyone on this forum has seen. Takes time to wipe,restore and test, especially if they had to pull from offsite or physical. Between backend/frontend and inter-connectivity with databases etc. it will surely be quite a process to get back to full functionality. Their IT staff is probably running on extremely little sleep through all this.

 

[MThuntr]

Doubt it. Odds are their IT unit did a backup restore. It does not pay for big companies to pay ransom. It's much cheaper to do off-site daily backups. More than half the time if you DID pay the ransom, the damage to your data is so severe you can't use it anyways. I should add that the employee(s) who compromised the system by clicking links in their email on official work systems SHOULD be severely reprimanded. Nearly all companies that rely on hi-tech systems regularly warn against phishing attacks which is likely what happened initially.

good call