Western Digital (WD) is urging consumers who use its My Book Live and My Book Live Duo products to disconnect from the Internet after malware was discovered to have deleted all data from some users’ devices.
According to The Straits Times, Western Digital announced on its community forum that malicious software had infected some My Book Live devices, resulting in a factory reset that deleted the data.
WD said “We understand that our customers’ data is very important. At this time, we recommend you to disconnect your My Book Live from the Internet to protect your data on the device,”
WD added “We are actively investigating and we will provide updates to this thread when they are available,”
A number of users began discussions on the WD community forum on Thursday, saying they were unable to access their data.
Within a day of its posting, one such thread had over 150 responses, including from users who said to have lost years’ worth of photos, documents and data.
Some users posted user logs indicating that their devices had been reset to factory defaults, while others said that the passwords they used to access the drive were no longer valid.
My Book Live is a personal network-attached storage device that allows users to access their files from various devices connected to the same network or remotely via the Internet. It was first released in 2010.
The last firmware update for this device was in 2015, which means it is no longer supported by the manufacturer. It’s also no longer for sale on WD’s online store.
WD added in a separate statement that there was no sign of a breach or compromise of its cloud services or systems.