Plex users, change your password
Published: 24th August 2022 | Source: Plex | Author: Mark Campbell
Plex has suffered a data breach - You should probably change your password
Plex is one of the most popular media streaming apps on the market, allowing users to organise their video files, audio files, and photos for future viewing. Plex acts as a hub for a users media collection, and can even be used to stream said media collections though the internet, allowing your media collection to be shared with your friends or family.
Plex has today started sending emails to their users confirming that they have suffered a "potential data breach", and are asking affected users to change their passwords. Emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords appear to have been accessed though Plex's data breach. The company claims that they discovered "suspicious activity" on their databases "yesterday".
So far, Plex has only announced this potential breach to affected users though email. The company has not publically confirmed this breach on their website or through their social media channels. We only know of this breach because a member of our staff was affected by this breach.
Below is an excerpt from the email that Plex is now sending to users that are affected by this breach.
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 .
What can Plex users do to protect themselves?
Right now, all that Plex users can do is change their passwords and make sure that they do not use their Plex passwords for any other services. Aside from this, Plex has also recommended that their users utilise two-factor authentication to give their accounts an additional layer or protection.
You can join the discussion on Plex's data breach on the OC3D Forums .