Western Digital My Book devices hit by malware that deletes files, resets device
Western Digital says servers weren’t compromised
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Several owners of Western DigitalMy Book devicestook to the official support forums to report that theirnetwork-attached storage (NAS) deviceswere mysteriously wiped clean.
NAS devices are a favorite with cybercriminals and Taiwanese vendorQNAPhas faced the brunt of the attacks thanks to the popularity of its NAS devices.
However,Bleeping Computernotes that unlike the network-facing QNAP devices, the attacked My Book devices were behind afirewalland instead rely on the My Book Live cloud servers to provideremote access.
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This has led some users to speculate that the unexpecteddata erasurecould probably be the work of hackers who managed to compromise Western Digital’s servers to issue a remote factory reset command to the devices.
Unsolved mystery
Western Digital has acknowledged the behavior, but has shot down suggestions of its servers being compromised.
The company also shared that the My Book Live devices received its final firmware update in 2015, and that it is currently investigating the reason behind the erasure.
Responding to questions fromBleeping Computer, the company said they believe the incidents were the result of individual compromise of the affected devices.
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“Western Digital has determined that some My Book Live devices are being compromised by malicious software….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,” Western Digital said in its official statement toBleeping Computer.
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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