Aviation Navigational System Hit By Unknown Crypto Ransomware Gang

An aviation navigational system was hit recently by an unknown crypto-ransomware gang, affecting the system that pilots rely on during flights as we are reading more in the upcoming crypto news.

Smartwatch maker and data-syncing service provider Garmin was the latest aviation navigational system that got under ransomware attack and got a few of its services taken down but managed to encrypt its internal network shortly. According to a series of tweets published by the company, the Garmin Connect website and mobile app were hacked by the hackers as well as the call centers and every customer support resources such as emails, online chats, and handling calls.

The nature of the attack was unveiled by ZDNet who stated that the ransomware group targeted FlyGarmin, the company’s service that supports the line of aviation navigational equipment. The Garmin Pilot app was offline during the day and only affected a few pilots that rely on the software to schedule and plan flights. The website of the company is now working but they wrote:

 “We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.”

Chris Clements, the vice president of solutions architecture at cybersecurity company Cerebrus Sentinel commented:

 “The security incident at Garmin highlights the need for organizations to implement a well thought out and formalized Incident Response plan with a preselected response team for key tasks like recovery, root cause analysis, and public communications. With no details forthcoming from official Garmin spokespeople, employees have been tweeting out information that may or may not be accurate and leading to wild speculation as to the extent and severity of the situation.”

The University of York was also attacked by a ransomware gang a few days ago and the vulnerabilities from their third-party service provider led to a data breach as well. Also, as reported recently, Argentina’s largest Telecommunications company fell a victim to a ransomware attack where the hackers demanded $7.5 million in Monero.