Western Digitial is warning owners of its My Book Live storage drives to disconnect them from the internet until further notice. The advisory follows numerous reports from around the globe that some of the drives have been compromised and had their files wiped clean by malicious software.
WD My Book Live is the company’s network-attached storage device. The drive connects to computers via USB and also connects to a local network via Ethernet. WD My Book Live includes an app to access their stored files via Western Digital’s cloud servers.
BleepingComputer reports that My Book Live and Live Duo device owners on Thursday began complaining on Western Digital’s support forums of their files having been deleted and that they no longer had access through the drive’s official app or a web browser.
When users attempted to log in through the drive’s dashboard, they were informed they were using an invalid password. “All my data is gone too,” another user said. “I am totally screwed without that data… years of it.”
Users in the community shared device logs that point to a remote command that initiated a factory reset on affected devices starting at around 3:00 p.m. on Thursday and going on throughout the night.
Western Digital has told customers to disconnect their My Book Live devices while the company investigates the attacks. The company says that while they are actively investigating the attacks but do not believe it was a compromise of their servers.
Western Digital has determined that some My Book Live devices are being compromised by malicious software. In some cases, this compromise has led to a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device. The My Book Live device received its final firmware update in 2015. We understand that our customers’ data is very important. At this time, we recommend you disconnect your My Book Live from the Internet to protect your data on the device. We are actively investigating and we will provide updates to this thread when they are available.
Product Security Bulletin: WDC-21008 Recommended Security Measures for WD My Book Live and WD My Book Live Duo | Western Digital
Until more is known about the attacks, one thing is clear, disconnect your My Book Live drive from the internet.
(Via MacRumors)
