Hackers are Remotely Erasing Western Digital Hard Drives

This article has been indexed from E Hacking News – Latest Hacker News and IT Security News

The whole goal of using a network-attached storage device is to have a hard drive where you can back up vital data and then retrieve the files when you’re out and about. Unknown hackers, on the other hand, are turning Western Digital My Book NAS hard drives into nightmare backup tools by infiltrating users’ computers and deleting all of their data. The My Books are controlled by WD My Book Live, an app that allows consumers to access their data and manage their NAS from anywhere. 

Last week, the drive manufacturer stated that certain owners’ network-connected storage had been accessed unofficially and a complete reset had been triggered, though specifics on how seriously individuals should be concerned are still emerging. Western Digital said the WD My Book Live and WD My Book Live Duo drives are affected. They were first introduced in 2010, and the most recent firmware update was in 2015. The business has not stated how many drives are in circulation or estimated how many people are still using them. 

“Western Digital has determined that some My Book Live and My Book Live Duo devices are being compromised through exploitation of a remote command execution vulnerability,” the company said in a security bulletin. “In some cases, the attackers have triggered a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device.”