Western Digital has finally restored the My Cloud service after more than a week following a hack, but those behind the breach claim to have stolen customer data.
The My Cloud service returned on Wednesday, 10 days after Western Digital officially reported an outage that made the online storage platform inaccessible for users.
The outage occurred right as Western Digital reported a breach that it first detected on March 26 involving hackers infiltrating the company’s systems and stealing some data. As a “proactive measure,” Western Digital took certain systems and services offline, likely to examine the full scope of the breach and to purge the hackers’ presence.
It's unclear why My Cloud was down for so long, and what the hackers stole. Western Digital declined to offer any new comment. “This investigation is in its early stages and Western Digital is coordinating with law enforcement authorities,” the company said on April 3.
However, TechCrunch spoke to one of the hackers involved in the breach, who claims 10TB of company data was stolen, including information on customers.
The hacker says they asked Western Digital to pay at least an eight-figure sum or else the stolen data will be published online. However, TechCrunch notes the company appears to have shut down attempts by the hackers to negotiate a payment. It’s also important to note cybercriminals have every incentive to inflate or lie about their claims in order to pressure a company to pay up.
In the meantime, some Western Digital customers are demanding the company be more transparent about the breach and what might’ve been stolen. "We need to know what happened, have our details been compromised and what’s going to happen differently in future!?” wrote one user on Facebook.