Western Digital’s My Cloud Storage Devices Have Hard-Coded Backdoor
Western Digital’s My Cloud network attached storage (NAS) devices claim to offer an easy, all-in-one solution for storing your data at home. However, they might also be providing an easy, all-in-one solution for hackers to steal your data take control of your device. Western Digital was told about the vulnerabilities last year but has yet to patch many devices.
A Western Digital My Cloud NAS starts at less than $200 for a few terabytes with a single disk. It goes up to about $700 in the largest 16TB dual-drive system. Then there are the My Cloud EX series devices, which are more like a traditional NAS with user-accessible drive bays. These might cost well over $1,000 once equipped with drives. The majority of Western Digital’s network storage products are affected by the vulnerability.
According to researchers at GulfTech, WD’s NAS boxes use a broken security model that allows remote attackers to upload files and gain root access, but that’s not all. There’s also a hard-coded backdoor that could allow anyone to access your files. It’s really a mess.