Free Media Diagnosis for Western Digital MyBook Live Devices Affected by Hacking Attacks
Note: FREE media diagnosis offer for WD Mybook live HDD was valid only till 4th July. This offer is not available now.
Stellar has announced specialized in-lab services for users in India who lost their data due to unknown hacking attacks on WD MyBook Live® and MyBook Live Duo® devices. The lab-based data recovery service is offered with free media diagnosis, which the company’s technical experts will perform as a token of goodwill.
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FREE media diagnosis offer valid till 4th July 2021. |
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The service intends to offer a trustworthy solution to the affected users and help them recover their lost data. Stellar is providing this “walk-in” service through its 15 locations in India, namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Noida, Pune, and Vashi.
However, before reaching Stellar for media diagnosis and recovery service, here’s a quick overview of the hacking incidents concerning Western Digital MyBook Live devices.
As per Western Digital official release, dated June 24, users had reported instances of their MyBook Live devices getting factory reset automatically and later found empty. As a result, all the data stored on these devices was lost after the factory reset. The official advisory informs that the attackers manipulated a remote command execution vulnerability in WD MyBook Live® storage devices to trigger a factory reset, thereby erasing the data on the devices. The release also cites this remote code execution vulnerability CVE-2018-18472 in the NIST- National Vulnerability Database (NVD).
Reportedly, the WD MyBook Live devices affected by the hacking attacks had their existing partitions wiped, and then new partitions were created with the Ext4 file system.
The bug is vulnerable to exploitation by anybody who is aware of the network storage devices’ Internet IP addresses; a review of the compromised devices’ log files by Western Digital supports this plausibility. Furthermore, it informs that the hackers could directly connect with the compromised MyBook Live® devices via the Internet through IP addresses in different geographical locations.
According to the official advisory, “this issue indicates that the affected devices were directly accessible from the Internet, either through direct connection or through port forwarding that was enabled either manually or automatically via UPnP.”
While this event unfolds and more developments are expected imminently, Western Digital recommends users to disconnect their MyBook Live® and MyBook Live Duo® devices from the Internet. This action is crucial to thwarting potential attacks on the devices that have managed to stay clear of the trouble.
What to Do Before You Reach Stellar for Free Media Diagnosis?
WD MyBook Live® is a network-attached storage (NAS) that serves as a personal cloud. The hard drive in the device is inside an enclosure and cannot directly connect with a computer system to allow data recovery. So, you need to first remove the hard drive from the enclosure, connect it to the computer, and perform data recovery on the drive using a software tool.
Preliminary steps to perform data recovery on Western Digital MyBook Live
- Open the MyBook Live enclosure and remove the hard drive. (Watch the below video on “free media diagnosis for western digital MyBook live devices affected by hacking attacks“)
- Connect the hard drive to a Windows computer (desktop or laptop PC) using a SATA to USB adaptor.
- Download a free trial of Stellar Toolkit for Data Recovery and install it on the system.
Note: The software can scan NTFS, FAT, exFAT, APFS, HFS, HFS+, Ext2, Ext3, & Ext4 file systems. As mentioned earlier in this post, the compromised drives were reformatted and partitioned using the Ext4 file system.
- Launch the software and select All Data Click Next.
- Select the WD MyBook Live hard drive as the location to recover from.
- Scan the drive using the Deep Scan option available at the bottom of the screen.
By following these steps, you will be able to determine whether the software can recover your files from the WD MyBook Live devices.
Subsequently, you can reach out to Stellar for expert advice and free assistance, as described in the next section:
How to Contact Stellar?
Follow these steps to reach out to Stellar India through different channels:
Request a Call Back
Please fill up this contact form. Our data recovery consultant will reach out to you.
Contact Us
You can directly reach out to our corporate office by making a phone call at 730 3600 601.
Ending Note
The hacking incident concerning Western Digital MyBook Live devices has resulted in substantial data loss for several users with no solution in sight. The free media diagnosis along with expert in-lab data recovery service from Stellar focuses on providing professional advice and solutions to help users recover their precious data.
We highly recommend the users to start troubleshooting this problem by trying Stellar Toolkit for Data Recovery— a tool designed for Windows, macOS, and Linux file systems, including Ext2, Ext3, & Ext4, which are of primary concern here. Further, with many similar cases handled in the recent past and pulling off successful recovery, Stellar can offer users the hope of recovering their data. The in-lab recovery service represents the company’s immediate efforts to help the affected users.
About The Author
Girish
Girish is a blogger and writer. He has over 6 years of experience in Data Recovery and Data Eraser technology. In his free time, he writes about technical tips and tutorials.