A hacker is demanding Bitcoin in exchange for Plex’s stolen data

A hacker recently infiltrated the server hosting media service Plex’s forums and blog and is holding the compromised data at ransom. The hacker demanded payment of 9.5 Bitcoins (around $2,400) by July 3 (today). If no payment was made, the ransom would increase by five Bitcoins, the attacker said. If Plex fails to comply, all stolen data will be released via multiple torrent networks and “there will be no more Plex.” Plex addressed the issue in a blog post, saying they first learned of the security breach on July 1 at around 1pm PDT. The attacker was able to gain access to some personal information including IP addresses, forum private messages, e-mail addresses and encrypted (hashed and salted) passwords from forum users. There’s no reason to believe that any other parts of their system was compromised. Credit card and other payment information isn’t stored in their systems, Plex added. As a precaution, Plex reset the plex.tv passwords of all users with linked forum accounts and has reached out via e-mail with further instructions for those impacted by the breach.