Popular External Hard Drives At Risk
Do you store valuable data or important backups on one of Western Digital’s extremely popular My Book external hard drives?
Is that hard drive plugged into a computer connected to the internet?
If you answered yes to both questions, we have extremely bad news for you: Multiple software vulnerabilities in My Book hard drives allow cybercriminals to trigger a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device, Western Digital reports here (and more technical here).
CLCA’s technical support team strongly encourages you to immediately:
- Safely power down the hard drive.
- Disconnect it from your computer.
- Only use the hard drive on computers not connected to the Internet. If your model has WiFi, disable it.
- Review this article on Bleeping Computer (and this more technical piece on Ars Technicia).
Western Digital reports that they will provide data recovery services for customers who have lost data as a result of these attacks. My Book Live users will also be offered a trade-in program to upgrade to a supported My Cloud device. Both programs will be available beginning in July.
CLCA Recommends
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If you are currently backing up your computer to a My Book hard drive, don’t stop protecting your mission critical data or treasured digital files. The highly regarded Wirecutter website offers under $100 recommendations for the best external hard drive and the best portable hard drive.
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To really provide peace of mind, CLCA’s technical support team also encourages the concurrent use of a cloud-based back-up service. Wirecutter offers recommendations.
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Got cyberinsurance? CLCA Insurance Solutions does.
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