Users of Western Digital’s My Cloud service are outraged after a network breach locked them out of their data for more than 24 hours, leaving information the company handles in the hands of unknown hackers.
The inability to access data stored in My Cloud was reported on social media by several users, including: This one, indicating that the outage started somewhere on Saturday. Since then, the number of users (and their anxiety levels) has continued to grow.
sounds like ransomware
By early California time on Monday, Western Digital issued a release saying it learned that “unauthorized third parties had accessed many of the company’s systems” a week ago on Sunday. “Based on our investigations to date, the company believes that an unauthorized party obtained certain data from its systems and is working to understand the nature and scope of that data.”
My Cloud’s status page was updated Sunday to show that services including My Cloud, My Cloud Home, My Cloud Home Duo, My Cloud OS5, SanDisk ibi, and SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger are completely down. . There was no estimate on this page for when service will be restored. Suspension means that the user cannot access the data stored in My Cloud. The outage also extends to the ability to use proxies, web, authentication, email, and push notifications.
western digital
No details are currently available regarding the unauthorized access to Western Digital’s network and the theft of its data. As Brett Callow, a ransomware expert at security firm Emsisoft, said: Said: “We can’t say for sure, but it looks like Western Digital may have a #ransomware incident.” more likely to fall into the hands of hackers.
locked out
Many users took to social media to report that the outage left them without the data they needed to perform their work tasks. “Unable to use WD My Cloud Home login service” for a user I have written on sunday. “Thank you @westerndigital for granting me access to my data in the living room.” Another user Monday morning I have written: “@westerndigital When are you planning to fix the 503 error? I need access to the info 🥲 I won’t be in the cloud from Saturday.”
Western Digital provides customers with storage devices to store data locally, but with the included My Cloud service, data can be backed up to off-premises servers and content accessed remotely over the Internet. According to a post like this on Western Digital’s customer support page, by default a user must authenticate themselves with MyCloud.com to enable local his network access to his MyCloud data. Many users are effectively locked out when home.mycloud.com gives a 503 error.
Western Digital representatives will be able to advise you on the current status of the outage and what, if any, steps you can take to regain access to your data while the outage continues. Did not respond to inquiring e-mail.
Western Digital warned that the incident “has caused and may continue to cause disruption to some of our business operations.” The company also said it was “taking proactive measures” and working to restore affected infrastructure and services. We have hired an anonymous security firm to investigate and are working with law enforcement.
