Garmin Connect is coming back – slowly – as activities start syncing with Strava

Garmin Connect appears to be coming back slowly following the suspected ransomware attack that began last Thursday and has left owners of the brand’s devices unable to use the service.

Some users of the service have found that rides and runs recorded since the “outage,” as Garmin terms it – the company has not publicly acknowledged that a ransomware attack is to blame – synced to Garmin Connect overnight, while others are now able to create routes on it.

> Garmin issues FAQ as ransomware attack enters fourth day

It appears however that we are still a long way from full functionality being restored, and the app continues to show an error page, as does much of the website, if the pages load at all.

This morning, Strava told users of its run and ride-tracking app: “Garmin Connect has resumed service and delayed activities have begun to upload to Strava.

“This will happen automatically. Given the volume, this may take a week or longer. Thanks for your patience.”

Strava also pointed users towards a page on its website providing information on how to upload activities manually, and said: “If you already manually uploaded an activity, don’t worry – duplicate activities won’t appear when the same activity syncs automatically.

“We won’t be responding to support tickets related to delayed or duplicated uploads, as most of these issues will resolve themselves,” it added.

Meanwhile, India Today has reported that it is believed that the ransomware attack is the work of the Evil Corp hacker group run by the Russian hacker, Maksim Yakubets, who is believed to have made a fortune through hacking attacks targeting individuals and businesses, enabling him to fund a lavish lifestyle.

The 33-year-old was indicted in the US in December, and the FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction – the highest ever for a suspected cyber criminal.

At the time, the UK’s National Crime Agency said that in this country alone, Evil Corp’s activities had netted it hundreds of millions of pounds over the past decade.

The agency’s director general, Lynne Owens, said: “The significance of this group of cyber criminals is hard to overstate; they have been responsible for campaigns targeting our financial structures with multiple strains of malware over the last decade. We are unlikely to ever know the full cost, but the impact on the UK alone is assessed to run into the hundreds of millions.

“These indictments demonstrate that our world-leading law enforcement, in unparalleled cooperation with our US allies, is tirelessly committed to cracking down on cyber criminality – pursuing legal action and targeting their finances no matter where criminals are based.

“It is our assessment that Maksim Yakubets and Evil Corp – the cyber crime group he controls – represent the most significant cyber crime threat to the UK.

“While the harm caused by this group has targeted mainly financial institutions, there is no doubt that their activity has had real world impacts, defrauding and stealing from victims in the UK and worldwide. The Lamborghini Yakubets drives was someone’s life savings, now emptied from their bank account.

“We will continue to work closely with our international partners, be that in the US, Europe or elsewhere in the world, to present a united front against online criminals that threaten our prosperity and security,” she added.

• How did you cope during the Great Garmin Connect Outage of July 2020? Let us know in the comments below ...