Anyone got Plex data breach on their bingo card?
According to an email I just received, there’s been a Plex data breach. Plex got hacked. What got hacked appears to be databases containing user names, email addresses, and encrypted passwords. While this doesn’t initially sound like earth shattering hacking news as credit cards and parent’s names information wasn’t taken, you should change your password just in case due to the fact that there’s a chance they could guess it, and there’s a further chance that a hacker might, with your username and password, be able to take control of your Plex server.
Wait wait hold up a sec don’t run to change your password just yet – people are getting locked out. Check the plex forums or wait a few hours before you attempt. (see bottom of article)
From there, who knows? I guess the threat of the Plex data breach is probably being able to somehow execute code, delete the OS, infiltrate your network, annoy your cats, etc. It’s really late though (why am I still up,) and my abilities to figure out how monumentally bad this could be end there.
Cutting and pasting the Plex data breach email I received below:
Dear Plex User,
We want you to be aware of an incident involving your Plex account information yesterday. While we believe the actual impact of this incident is limited, we want to ensure you have the right information and tools to keep your account secure.
What happened
Yesterday, we discovered suspicious activity on one of our databases. We immediately began an investigation and it does appear that a third-party was able to access a limited subset of data that includes emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords. Even though all account passwords that could have been accessed were hashed and secured in accordance with best practices, out of an abundance of caution we are requiring all Plex accounts to have their password reset. Rest assured that credit card and other payment data are not stored on our servers at all and were not vulnerable in this incident.
What we’re doing
We’ve already addressed the method that this third-party employed to gain access to the system, and we’re doing additional reviews to ensure that the security of all of our systems is further hardened to prevent future incursions. While the account passwords were secured in accordance with best practices, we’re requiring all Plex users to reset their password.
What you can do
Long story short, we kindly request that you reset your Plex account password immediately. When doing so, there’s a checkbox to “Sign out connected devices after password change.” This will additionally sign out all of your devices (including any Plex Media Server you own) and require you to sign back in with your new password. This is a headache, but we recommend doing so for increased security. We have created a support article with step-by-step instructions on how
to reset your password here.
We’d also like to remind you that no one at Plex will ever reach out to you to ask for a password or credit card number over email. For further account protection, we also recommend enabling two-factor authentication on your Plex account if you haven’t already done so.
Lastly, we sincerely apologize to you for any inconvenience this situation may cause. We take pride in our security system and want to assure you that we are doing everything we can to swiftly remedy this incident and prevent future incidents from occurring. We are all too aware that third-parties will continue to attempt to infiltrate IT infrastructures around the world, and rest assured we at Plex will never be complacent in hardening our security and defenses.
For step-by-step instructions on how to reset your password, visit: https://support.plex.tv/articles/account-requires-password-reset
OK, it’s late, Paul’s going to bed. I realize the formatting above may look terrible but I’m trying to get the news out, and also have to be up in 4 hours. Featured image is from Pexel’s free photos and no idea who he is but he’s the face of data breaches there. Rock on data breach free stock photo guy, rock on.
Plex password reset
Suspicious lack of information on forum website but everyone seems to have gotten the email I did and now are having troubles resetting passwords due to internal server errors.
Inability to reset password thread.
Might want to check the forums before attempting to change password as people are getting locked out of their Plex accounts.
