In the News:
GPS giant, Garmin was recently the victim of a ransomware attack that impacted their online services, mobile application, support center, and commercial flight application. Garmin reported that there is no indication that any customer data was accessed. Threatpost reported that the attack appears to have used WastedLocker ransomware. WastedLocker first appeared in May from a group called Evil Corp, a Russian Hacking group.
Our Take:
The unfortunate ransomware attack on Garmin is a timely reminder of the importance of offline and cloud backups to avoid storing all data in one location. Garmin’s statement that customer’s personal and financial data does not appear to have been accessed in the attack seems to indicate that customer data was stored separately or more securely than the impacted data. Storing sensitive data in multiple locations as well as maintaining data backups are crucial best practices to guard against cyberattacks. There are constant threats that can put individual and corporate data at risk. It is best practice to save your important data and files in more than one location, such as external hard drives or cloud storage where appropriate, so that if one location is compromised you have not lost your information or files.
Recommendations:
- Use a cloud service, like NU cloud storage, in addition to local storage on your computer to back up files. Learn more here: https://www.it.northwestern.edu/service-catalog/collab/doc-collab/document-sharing.html
- Invest in an external storage device/external hard drive for personal data on your personal PC that you unplug when not in use. This way, even if your computer is infected with ransomware, the backup external hard drive’s files are safe.
- Never click on unknown or unverified links in emails.
- Review Northwestern IT Security’s recommendations and tips for data backups.