Report: Popular Garmin Fitness Tracking Service Goes Down In Ransomware Attack

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/AP) — Thousands of San Francisco Bay Area fitness enthusiasts continued to be frustrated Saturday because their Garmin tracking watches were not working.

The tracking service -- a popular way for runners and cyclists to upload data from their latest workouts -- has been down since Thursday.

On Saturday, Forbes.com reported the outage has been caused by a ransomware attack.

Forbes reported that Garmin employees have told BleepingComputer that the company was struck down by the WastedLocker ransomware. The hackers were demanding a $10 million ransom.

Fitness enthusiasts took to social media to vent their frustrations about not being able to use the service. Runners said that while the outage doesn't stop them from training, not being able to use Garmin Connect means they can't track their workout data or share their routes on Strava, a social network for runners and cyclists.

Atlanta tech executive Caroline Dunn, who runs five days a week and finished the New York Marathon in 2018, said the outage means she and her running friends can't send each other kudos - Strava's version of Facebook's likes - to encourage each other.

"We're not doing this for our health, we're doing this so that we can brag to our friends," Dunn said lightheartedly. "Now that we're all social distancing, I don't run in a group with my friends and they don't watch me run. I have to brag online to my friends about all of my runs."

The company has issued an apology.

"We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect," the company said on its Twitter accounts and website. "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."

Connecticut runner Megan Flood saw the prolonged outage as both a curse and a blessing.

"It's frustrating in part because my Garmin is connected to my Strava (fitness app), and I like the community aspect on Strava," Flood, 27, said Friday. "But sometimes not being so connected to my device is nice. I've run some of my best races when I forgot my watch or covered my watch face, so I find there are pros and cons to be so connected to a watch."

© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.