topic Re: Blocking Western Digital MyCloud in General Topics

Blocking Western Digital MyCloud

jhickey — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 18:01:18 GMT

When you purchase a Western Digital Mycloud device, it comes with the ability to share this data from anywhere. I dont know exactly how they do this. I am assuming the drive/NAS calls out to a MyCloud website, nails up a connection, and allows remote users to ride this connection back to access the data. So far I havent been able to get details of exactly how this works.

We are a highly regulated company and need to block this traffic. Anyone come across this ? Have any luck blocking it ?

Re: Blocking Western Digital MyCloud

OtakarKlier — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 18:05:41 GMT

Hello,

Start with the Traffic logs to see how its communicating out, application, IP, etc. If there is an application teh PAN recognizes, block that APP with a security Deny rule. Then check the URL logs to see if the destination IP correlates to a URL. If yes then you can block that URL with a Custom URL category, i.e. URL's to block, and add it in there with a deny rule. If no and its an IP hunt, try contacting WD and see if they they ahve alist of IP's they use and block that group.

That's how I would start.

Hope it helps.

Re: Blocking Western Digital MyCloud

BPry — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 19:47:41 GMT

I'm not actually positive that they themselves host the data, I'm pretty sure they don't. From what I remember from looking at it the app essentially relies on UPNP to create a port to the WD, then the webservers that they connect to simply keep track of the information for you. I would be interested in knowing if this is actually working right out of the gate, my gut is telling me that you'll find it likely doesn't work already.

Re: Blocking Western Digital MyCloud

Brandon_Wertz — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 14:54:43 GMT

One way you could potentially (probably the easiest too) block the functionality of this site is to create a custom URL object with the site(s) that a user connects to the "WD MyCloud." You could then create a file blocking profile which blocks the ability to upload or download to any file / any application and attach this file blocking profile to a security rule using both these custom objects.

Re: Blocking Western Digital MyCloud

nextgenhappines — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 00:37:31 GMT

@jhickey If this drive only needs to be available on that specific subnet? If that is the case, can you just assign a static ip address to it without a default gateway and dns setting ?

You may want to check with your internal IT security team as well. What is the risk to your company?