WastedLocker is a sophisticated ransomware operation that emerged in July 2020, primarily motivated by financial gain through targeted attacks against high-value organizations. The group is believed to have Russian origins and operates independently rather than as a Ransomware-as-a-Service model, with security researchers linking it to the Evil Corp cybercriminal organization previously associated with the Dridex banking trojan. WastedLocker operators typically gain initial access through spear-phishing campaigns and exploit kits, utilizing legitimate administrative tools for lateral movement and employing custom encryption algorithms to lock victims' files, while notably focusing on data encryption rather than exfiltration-based extortion tactics. The group gained significant attention for targeting major U.S. organizations, including a high-profile attack against Garmin in July 2020 that reportedly resulted in a multi-million dollar ransom demand and temporary disruption of the company's services. Current intelligence suggests WastedLocker activity has significantly declined following increased law enforcement scrutiny and sanctions against Evil Corp members, with minimal confirmed operations reported since late 2021. The group has been linked to 2 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on July 23, 2020; most recent post October 16, 2020. The operation is currently inactive.
Sector and geography
This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Communication sector, which has 26 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Garmin is reported in United States, a country with 11,033 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.
If your organisation is affected
A listing by wastedlocker means Garmin appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.
- Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
- Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
- Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
- Report the incident to your national CERT, CISA (United States), as required for your jurisdiction.
- Monitor for the data appearing on wastedlocker's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.
How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.
