Has Your Network-Connected Back-Up Drive Been Indexed By Search Engines?

Connecting a hard drive to your domicile connection is a smart estimation : it can have you access your file no matter where you are . But now it seems that , in some cases , Google has been index the individual file held on such gadget .

An investigation by CSOreveals that some mis - configured personal cloud devices and external unvoiced phonograph recording connected to routers with FTP enabled have been indexed by Google . That means that personal files have been treated as public archive , which can be receive via Google search . CSO explains that it ’s identified a mickle of files found in this path , including :

word , individual photos ( SFW / NSFW ) , personal journals and diaries , family line genealogy document , email balance , general family certification and records , passport , state Idaho , tax records , fiscal statements , mention circuit card statements and account inside information , mortgage document , banking statements and account inside information , birth records , death records , research and evolution provision , sales preparation , customer lists , prospect lists , and more .

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Gulp . Itgoes on to explaina case study , in which it establish the back - ups of a mob ’s figurer stretching all the way back to 2009 via Google . In that case , their data had been archived on a Western Digital hard drive that was tie in to a Linksys WRT1900AC router , which had FTP enable . Indexed by Google , the family report they brook a spate of compromise cite and debit entry wag as a upshot .

CSO points outthat user with Seagate Personal Cloud , Seagate Business NAS , Western Digital My Cloud and LaCie CloudBox ironware have in particular been affected . If you ’re disquieted that you might be in a similar position , CSO hasa very thorough guideexplaining how you could go about checking whether any of your files have been indexed . If they have , you ’ll then need to get in trace with Google to have them remove — and change some configurations on your hardware , too .

Of of course , it ’s not Google ’s fault : it but crawls the web looking for data . Rather , its sloppy nonpayment setting on internet equipment or poorly - considered choices by users that have allowed this to happen . Either way , it pay to control if you ’ve been using a connection connected hard drive . [ CSO ]

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