Reports suggest multinational tech company Garmin may have paid a $10m USD crypto ransom to hackers.

On 23 July cybergang Evil Corp hackers attacked the company, encrypting its internal network and disrupting many of its services, including customer support and navigation. 

However, according to Lawrence Abrams at Bleeping Computer, it seems Garmin’s IT department regained access to the systems affected by the WastedLocker ransomware attack using a decryptor. 

Apparently, because the ransomware used has no known weaknesses in its encryption algorithm, this strongly suggests Garmin paid all or at least some of the ransom to the attackers – with a timestamp on Gamin’s script pointing to it being paid on either 24/25 July. 

Evil Corp is led by Maksim Yakubets, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, with a $5m reward offered, and was indicted by the US Department of Justice in 2019. This means if Garmin did indeed pay up, the company could have committed a crime for funding a sanctioned group. 

Firms left with little choice but to pay

Garmin isn’t the only major company to have paid a crypto ransom recently. US travel firm CWT has said it negotiated a Bitcoin (BTC) ransom down from $10m to $4.5m in order to regain control of its systems, following a major hack in late July. 

CWT’s attackers are said to have used Ragnar Locker ransomware to lock access to files on as many as 30,000 computers and steal sensitive data. Apparently, the company managed to negotiate the ransom down by explaining it had been financially hammered by the COVID-19 crisis. 

In early June, the  University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine is also thought to have paid a crypto ransom of more than $1m to hackers.

AYO.NEWS says:

It’s easy to argue that firms shouldn’t pay these ransoms, but the reality is that in the vast majority of cases the cost of paying the ransom is far less than the cost of the damage done to business by even a few days of disruption. 

And, when those behind the attacks are already indicted and wanted, and are likely sheltering under the protection of hostile regimes, it’s hard to see what use turning to law enforcement and legal channels can be.

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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