Reddit Faces Data Leak Threat by Hackers Demanding Ransom and API Pricing Rollback

Hackers of the social forum platform Reddit are threatening to leak 80 gigabytes worth of company data unless the company pays a ransom and brings back its original API prices. 

The phishing attack is led by the group BlackCat ransomware gang, which claims to have stolen Reddit’s data during a breach of systems that took place last February.  

Over the weekend, the group made a post on its dark website titled “The Reddit Files” where it also claimed to have emailed the forum company twice, but there “was no attempt to find out what we took.”  

“In our last email, we stated that we wanted $4.5 million in exchange for the deletion of the data and our silence. As we also stated, if we had to make this public, then we now demand that they also withdraw their API pricing changes along with our money or we will leak it,” the post wrote. 

A Reddit spokesperson has confirmed the group’s claims of data breaching are related to an incident that took place during February 9, where unidentified hackers had obtained confidential employee information.  

It remains unclear what types of data have been stolen. During the February attack, Reddit CTO Christopher Slowe also shared that the company had “no evidence” that data such as employee accounts and passwords had been obtained by the hacker group.  

The latest phishing scheme comes in light of the recent Reddit API pricing changes, which prompted over 8,000 subreddits in the site to stage a blackout. 

Several third-party apps have also closed down since the announcement of the price change, such as Apollo, ReddPlanet, and more.