Garmin South Africa data breach results in compromise of customers’ personal data

• Garmin South Africa (Garmin SA) was the victim of a data breach that compromised the personal information of its shopping portal’s customers.
• The impact of the breach is limited to the organization’s South African site, and affected users were notified.

What happened?

Garmin SA’s shopping portal, shop[.]garmin[.]co[.]za, was infiltrated by cybercriminals to steal personal data of customers.

• Only the South African site of the shopping portal was compromised, and the affected users were notified.
• The stolen data includes payment card number, payment card expiration date, payment card CVV number, first name, last name, email address, phone number, and physical address. This can enable hackers to make purchases with the victims’ card details.
• The cause of the breach is not disclosed by Garmin SA, although there are speculations that the Magercart group is behind this cybercrime.

Jérôme Segura, a security researcher at Malwarebytes says, “While the cause is not mentioned, the kind of stolen data (typical checkout form fields) and the CMS (Magento) sound like a Magercart skimmer.”

Garmin South Africa’s response

Details such as how many customers were affected or the cause of the breach has not been disclosed by Garmin yet.

• The affected shopping portal has been pulled down for maintenance. It displays a ‘Service Temporarily Unavailable’ message when accessed.
• The notice released by Garmin urges its customers to monitor records of the payment records, and contact the bank in case of any unauthorized transactions.

“As a valued customer, we apologize for this incident and assure you that Garmin takes our obligation to safeguard personal data very seriously,” says Jennifer Van Niekerk, South Africa Managing Director.

What should customers do?

If you have made any purchase on Garmin’s South African site,

• Monitor your card transactions and bank accounts for any kind of suspicious activity.
• Beware of any social engineering ploys the attackers may attempt with your compromised personal information.