Anyone who owns a WD My Book Live or WD My Book Live Duo can currently be the victim of a nasty security vulnerability and should immediately disconnect the models from the Internet.
The two Western Digital models, which are already a few years old, have a network connection and can thus also be accessed via the Internet while on the road. The fact that the latest firmware according to the manufacturing company is from 2015 is now taking revenge: many users report in the WD forum that the disk can be deleted by strangers and then all data is gone. Therefore, again the warning: should you still operate such a model with access to the Internet, pull the network plug! WD will hopefully release a software update soon.
Pull the plug!
As always, here are the usual tips if you want to make a device accessible on the road: the best choice is always to dial into your own router via VPN, which hopefully also has an up-to-date firmware. Many manufacturers also offer apps for macOS or iOS, so configuring the VPN accordingly doesn’t have to be a nightmare anymore.
If this is not possible, make sure to use a device that gets regular security updates and perhaps provides its own VPN server. Synology and Qnap are worth mentioning – their operating systems are constantly updated and offer OpenVPN. It is also easy to use the own manufacturer’s connection options. This is not as good as VPN, but it is more important to maintain the system permanently. So if you have any device at home that offers yours on the Internet and hasn’t received any updates for a few years: pull the plug.
