Plex users: Reset your password – a data breach has you at risk

If you use Plex, you might want to go ahead and change your password as soon as possible. The company recently sent out a letter informing users of a recent data breach that compromised a bunch of user data.

Troy Hunt took to Twitter earlier this week to share their own experience with the recent Plex breach.

Hunt is the creator of Have I Been Pwned, a platform dedicated to letting users know if their email account has been compromised in a breach of any sort.

In the letter, Plex confirms that a third-party bad actor has gained access to a subset of the company’s data troves.

Aw crap, I’m pwned in a @plex data breach. Again. I can’t do anything to *not* be in a breach like this (short of not using the service), but a @1Password generated random password and 2FA enabled makes this a mere inconvenience rather than a genuine risk. pic.twitter.com/XetB3IGUh3

— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) August 24, 2022

The data compromised includes users’ emails, usernames, and encrypted passwords. Fortunately, Plex doesn’t store any payment information, so your credit cards are safe.

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As Hunt notes, there’s not really much that users can do to avoid these kinds of breaches, except for not using the service in the first place. So it’s important that you maintain complex, unique passwords across all services like Plex.

Using a password manager, like 1Password or LastPass, makes it easier to establish complex passwords across your accounts. That way, when one password is compromised, your others may still be okay.

Plex says it has identified the method used to gain access in the breach. Although, the company didn’t clarify what that method was.

For now, Plex requires everyone to change their passwords. Hunt later pointed out in a subsequent tweet that he was having difficulty getting a password change to go through.

Unchecking the box for “sign out connected devices after password change” made changing his password possible. So if you use Plex, change your password as soon as possible.

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