Western Digital Breached

Bill Toulas at BleepingComputer has reported on the series of events pertaining to an identified breach at Western Digital. While Western Digital is following recommended protocols to identify and assess the impact of this security event, it comes at a cost for customers who have chosen to adopt and utilize the MyCloud series of network-attached storage devices. The appropriate actions taken by Western Digital have resulted in the MyCloud services being unavailable for days now. While the service will most likely be restored once the investigation has reached its conclusion and corrective actions are taken, the impact to customers may incur reputational damage for the MyCloud lineup of products.

Back in February, we had called out an errant recommendation for a defunct Drobo product by Macworld. While the list of recommended NAS units has had verbiage added to it for applicable Western Digital products, a temporary removal from the list would have been a better move. While this would have cut said list down to a Synology and Buffalo NAS unit, the adjustment would have validated that the provided list is more than just an affiliate link cash grab. Recognition that Western Digital’s efforts will take time to complete before bringing the MyCloud services back into operation is at least acknowledged by Macworld’s sister site PCWorld.