Garmin Hacked / ransom paid.

Star-Lord

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Elessar

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No I didn’t know they’d admitted it.
Just saying beware of fake news.
If the BBC publishes something that they say is direct from the company (as you’ve just linked to) you can rely on that.
 

westhinder

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Garmin also wrote to their users. It was pretty difficult to pretend nothing had happened when most of their services had been down for nearly a week
 

Elessar

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Garmin also wrote to their users. It was pretty difficult to pretend nothing had happened when most of their services had been down for nearly a week
I knew none of this.
By “services down” I presume plotters didn’t stop working but you couldn’t update them?
 

westhinder

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I knew none of this.
By “services down” I presume plotters didn’t stop working but you couldn’t update them?
Updates were impossible, not just for plotters, but synchronising sports watches, bike gps’es, systems used by pilots. It was a pretty comprehensive breakdown. The devices themselves did function though.
 

Mark-1

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Updates were impossible, not just for plotters, but synchronising sports watches, bike gps’es, systems used by pilots. It was a pretty comprehensive breakdown. The devices themselves did function though.

Yup, haven't been able to sync my watch to Garmin Connect for a week or so. All activities missing from the Connect App. Watch can't get ephemeris & almanac data so first fixes often takes forever. In my case the situation seems to have exposed another bug in the watch because it couldn't get a fix at all for 4 days. I haven't been able to run for a week because there's no point if it doesn't get shared for kudos. (I jest, but it's truer than I care to admit to myself.)

Navionics mobile app affected too so the damage seems to have been pretty comprehensive within Garmin, including subsidiarys.

Disaster, and it's not over yet. If a ransom really was really paid on the 25th July the un-encrypting process obviously isn't a fast one!
 
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mjcoon

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And HOW could that happen? HOW does your chart plotter on your boat connect to the internet in a way it could be hacked and features disabled?
It might be done indirectly if downloadable s/w on a server was hacked and spoofed and then updated, perhaps via smart card, to a plotter. Theoretical only; I cannot imagine why it would happen...

Mike.
 

Star-Lord

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And HOW could that happen? HOW does your chart plotter on your boat connect to the internet in a way it could be hacked and features disabled?
Spoofed! Fake GPS signals lead yacht astray this was in 2013. Earlier this year a big commercial ship went aground because of GPS 'malfunction'. AIS can be spoofed. Your chart plotter is connected to Internet when/if you upgrade it... Who knows the bugs and trojan horses you have downloaded onto it already LMAO obviously not very Pro asking that kind of question.
 

Sandy

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Spoofed! Fake GPS signals lead yacht astray this was in 2013. Earlier this year a big commercial ship went aground because of GPS 'malfunction'. AIS can be spoofed. Your chart plotter is connected to Internet when/if you upgrade it... Who knows the bugs and trojan horses you have downloaded onto it already LMAO obviously not very Pro asking that kind of question.
That was because of poor seamanship.

As for the downloading of malware, it theoretically could be done, but when was the last time you upgraded your plotter?
 

kof

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Rubbish. The chartplotters on boats were not hacked - not ever. What is happening in some places (Russia/China) is that the GPS signals from the sats were being interfered with which reduce the accuracy or give false positions.

Very very different situation from someone hacking a device on your boat.

I posted something a while back.. chartplotters on boats were hacked /AIS disabled / GPS giving false signals...
 

Mark-1

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How did this affect boats?

You can't download the latest Navionics Charts to your tablet/phone, which in itself affects boaters.

Given that I assume you can get hold of the latest Garmin/Navionics charts for your plotter if they are electronically distributed.

I'm sure there are people who log their sailing with a fitness watch - I do.

I bet Garmin Customer services aren't answering the phone right now or are swamped.

So it does affect boaters. How significant that effect is depends on the individuals circumstances.
Makes little difference to me, but I bet there are people who can't go on a trip because they need support to get something working or they planned to download the required cartography before they left and can't.
 
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Mark-1

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And HOW could that happen? HOW does your chart plotter on your boat connect to the internet in a way it could be hacked and features disabled?

Some (all?) current Garmin plotters have WiFi . They*could* be hacked. I'm sure they're well protected but you'd assume about Garmin's corporate network as well.

A pedantic point, and nothing to do with the current situation, but any of us can talk to a Garmin plotter over wi-fi. How far that gets us depends on how good we are and how good they are.

(As I say, a pedantic point really, I won't be losing sleep over it - apart from anything else what would the motive be, stealing someone waypoints?)
 
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