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Less than 6 700 customers affected by data theft says Garmin

After a rather stressful day for South Africans who may have used the shop.garmin.co.za website recently after the firm announced the website had been compromised and along with it, credit card information of its customers. The good news is Garmin has shared some additional information about the theft of customer payment data.

Theft is the operative term here as Garmin states that the attacker or attackers, utilised virtual skimming technology to capture customer details.

“While Garmin does not store credit card information, the unauthorized party leveraged virtual skimming technology to capture customer details at the time of input, including credit card information,” the firm told Hypertext.

That wording points to the possibility that this attack may have been a Magecart attack.

A Magecart attack compromises a website – though attack vectors vary – and installs a skimmer that grabs a customer’s information as they key it in.

Back in July, hacking groups managed to compromise 17 000 domains using Magecart attacks including 2 000 of the biggest websites in the world.

The firm says that less than 6 700 customers were affected. The only website that was affected was shop.garmin.co.za which is operated by a third-party and customers on other Garmin websites in other regions should be safe.

Garmin has started an investigation into the matter and has contacted the South African Information Regulator as well.

“We take our obligation to safeguard personal data very seriously and regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers. We are in communication with our South African customers who may have been affected by this issue and are working on safeguards to prevent future attacks,” said Garmin in a statement..

Customers that have used the shop.garmin.co.za website recently should keep an eye out for an alert from Garmin to see if they have been affected. More than that however, keep an eye on your bank account for suspicious activity.

The full statement from Garmin follows below.

Garmin recently became aware of a theft of customer data as part of a criminal cyberattack that affected customers who placed an order through shop.garmin.co.za. This e-commerce site was operated by a third-party on behalf of Garmin South Africa.

Promptly after learning of this incident, we immediately shut down the impacted system, began an investigation, and contacted the South African Information Regulator.

While Garmin does not store credit card information, the unauthorized party leveraged virtual skimming technology to capture customer details at the time of input, including credit card information.

The compromised data was limited to Garmin’s South Africa website which uses a separate e-commerce system operated by a third-party. This incident affected less than 6,700 customers in South Africa and does not affect customers who purchased from other Garmin websites in other regions.

We take our obligation to safeguard personal data very seriously and regret any inconvenience this may have caused our customers. We are in communication with our South African customers who may have been affected by this issue and are working on safeguards to prevent future attacks.

[Image – CC BY SA 2.0 Josh Hallett]

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