Hackers who call themselves Alphv/Blackcat have claimed that they possess 80 GB worth of confidential data that they stole from Reddit in an alleged hack that happened in February of this year. The hackers are demanding $4.5 million from the company, and that changes be made in the pricing for access to the Reddit Application Programming Interface (API). The hackers promise to make everything public if their demands are not met by offline negotiations.
Reddit had previously confirmed in February that its system had been hacked via “phishing attacks” by attackers who gained access to various internal documents, code, and some of the company’s internal systems without violating users’ accounts. However, Reddit had quickly assured the public that its production systems were not compromised.
According to the hackers, they had informed Reddit about the abduction of the data earlier in February, but the company allegedly did not try to find out what had been stolen, considering it as just a regular provocation. The hackers claimed that the company did not even try to investigate the matter.
Alphv/Blackcat is taking advantage of the widespread outrage against Reddit following the company’s announcement of paid access to its API platform. Third-party Reddit customers, such as Apollo, can make access restrictions optional. Platform users even led a digital strike against the proposed pricing plan, closing thousands of subreddits and forums based on Reddit.
“In our last letter to Reddit representatives, we stated that we want $4.5 million in exchange for data removal and our silence. We also warned that if we have to make this statement public, we will also demand the cancellation of a new pricing for access to access API,” stated Alphv/Blackcat.
Representatives of Reddit have not yet commented on the statement of the hackers, but the story continues to develop, and new information will be shared as it comes in.