Plex discloses data breach and urges password reset

The streaming media platform Plex is urging its users to reset passwords after threat actors gained access to its database.

Plex is an American streaming media service and a client–server media player platform.

The company disclosed a data breach after threat actors have access to a limited subset of data stored in a compromised database.

Exposed data includes emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords. In response to the unauthorized access to its database, the company urges all its users to immediately reset account passwords and log out of all devices connected to its service.

The company is urging all users to immediately reset account passwords and log out of all devices connected to its service.

Plex did share technical details about the security breach, below is the Plex data breach notification:

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. 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. 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. 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.

According to the company, financial and payment data were not compromised because are not stored on its servers. Plex also recommends enabling two-factor authentication for its users.

At this time, some users reported difficulties in changing their passwords, such as internal server errors.

“A number of users report getting “Not authorized” or “You do not have access to this server” messages for their own servers. Some report success when logging in and claiming the server again, though others have had no luck with this.” reported the website 9to5mac. “It appears Plex has not arranged sufficient additional bandwidth to cope with the flurry of password change attempts. Additionally, the password reset page asks for the new password before the existing one, which is obviously unexpected and may account for some of the failures.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, data breach)