this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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We have recently experienced a security incident that may potentially involve your Plex account information. We believe the actual impact of this incident is limited; however, action is required from you to ensure your account remains secure.

What happened

An unauthorized third party accessed a limited subset of customer data from one of our databases. While we quickly contained the incident, information that was accessed included emails, usernames, securely hashed passwords and authentication data.

Any account passwords that may have been accessed were securely hashed, in accordance with best practices, meaning they cannot be read by a third party. Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend you take some additional steps to secure your account (see details below). Rest assured that we do not store credit card data on our servers, so this information was not compromised in this incident.

What we’re doing

We’ve already addressed the method that this third party used to gain access to the system, and we’re undergoing additional reviews to ensure that the security of all of our systems is further strengthened to prevent future attacks.

What you must do

If you use a password to sign into Plex: We kindly request that you reset your Plex account password immediately by visiting https://plex.tv/reset. When doing so, there’s a checkbox to “Sign out connected devices after password change,” which we recommend you enable. This will sign you out of all your devices (including any Plex Media Server you own) for your security, and you will then need to sign back in with your new password.

If you use SSO to sign into Plex: We kindly request that you log out of all active sessions by visiting https://plex.tv/security and clicking the button that says ”Sign out of all devices”. This will sign you out of all your devices (including any Plex Media Server you own) for your security, and you will then need to sign back in as normal.

Additional Security Measures You Can Take

We remind you that no one at Plex will ever reach out to you over email to ask for a password or credit card number for payments. For further account protection, we also recommend enabling two-factor authentication on your Plex account if you haven’t already done so.

Lastly, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this situation may cause you. We take pride in our security systems, which helped us quickly detect this incident, and we want to assure you that we are working swiftly to prevent potential future incidents from occurring.

For step-by-step instructions on how to reset your password, visit:https://support.plex.tv/articles/account-requires-password-reset

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[–] Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 69 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Huh, I guess centralizing all of that userdata was a bad idea. Weird. If you hack some dude's Jellyfin, you just hack some dude and no one else.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (41 children)

You don't even have to hack jellyfin though. Quite a few endpoints aren't behind authentication at all.

But that doesn't help your case so I'm sure you'll just downvote me.

Edit: For those who don't know. https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin/issues/5415

Several issues. Some require being logged in with any account (to get other user information on the server, including admin)... others are endpoints that let media access if you guess a guessable md5 hash(which is normalized in docker setups in general... and standardized by *arr setups. So highly guessable if you use these tools... which most of you are). The sort of thing that media companies will absolutely abuse eventually if they're not already doing it to collect proof that you're hosting their content illegally. But I just find it laughable that this is the answer... but ya'll are frothing at the mouth over plex leaking an email address... Oh no! not the email address you already get boatloads of spam at! However will you live!

I'm angry about both, yet still prefer Jellyfin. Why? I control everything about it. I self host it and can choose who has access (including putting it behind a VPN). I have the code so I can patch it if I choose. I can even disable the problematic endpoints of I'm fine with the repercussions.

With Plex, i have to live with their central servers. With Jellyfin, I don't, and it's much less likely a corpo comes after me specifically than happens to see something via a Plex compromise.

I think both are fine services, and I appreciate Plex's response here. I still prefer Jellyfin.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

While I whish access were secured at some point. I'm still yet to see one of those guessed hash attacks on the wild.

A good thing about Jellyfin is that we KNOW its insecurities because it's open source.

Other software may be insecure like that but you would only know after an incident happens because you cannot audit the source code.

Yup, and that's why I still use it despite its security issues. I run it in a rootless container, so even if there's some sort of breach, it should be contained.

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[–] priapus@piefed.social 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Endpoints that dont give you any data that would be considered a breach.

That unauthentic endpoint shit is so overblown. They should be authenticated and I hope it changes in the future, but its really not a serious issue. If they worry you, put the endpoints behind your own authentication through your reverse proxy.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Complete access to your media without authentication isn't "don't give you any data".

Meanwhile you're all frothing at the mouth cause Plex leaked email addresses and encrypted passwords.

And you're correct. It's not a breach... because it wasn't protected to begin with.

Edit: You ninja edited your post... bad nettiquette.

put the endpoints behind your own authentication through your reverse proxy.

Breaks every app for jellyfin including tv apps. So no. that's not a valid answer.

Edit2: And I want to be clear about this... I don't simp for Plex I want off of the platform too... But Jellyfin in it's current state is a much worse security nightmare IMO. I can at least kill the plex relay binary and packet sniff it to know that it's not sharing data I don't want it to share. Jellyfin just lets everyone in that can guess a filepath (which you can "fix" by obfuscating it... but ask any security professional about that.) and somehow Jellyfin is the messiah? Devs ignoring a 5+ year old issue that already proof-of-concepted... is wild.

[–] priapus@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (19 children)

Complete access to your media without authentication isn't "don't give you any data".

The media on my server is not what I'd consider private data, it's just media. If someone wants to spend their time brute forcing randomized UUIDs to have a minuscule chance of viewing some media on my server, then I really couldn't care less. Especially since they're gonna get blocked by http probing detection after a few tries.

If someone could the emails and hashed passwords, then I would care about the spam I'd be constantly receiving after and the possibility of my friends and family's passwords being exposed, as not all of them use secure passwords (despite my best efforts to convince them to change that).

Simply put, if I was using Plex right now, this breach would impact the many family members and friends using my server, something I'd feel guilty about. Meanwhile, with Jellyfin, none of these concerns would have any effect on them.

Edit: You ninja edited your post... bad nettiquette.

I edited it right after posting because I accidentally clicked post. Didn't think you'd respond that fast.

Meanwhile you're all frothing at the mouth cause Plex leaked email addresses and encrypted passwords.

This was my only comment in the thread. Kinda feels like your reply here is taking out your frustration with this entire thread on my reply.

put the endpoints behind your own authentication through your reverse proxy.

Breaks every app for jellyfin including tv apps. So no. that's not a valid answer.

I assumed you were talking about stuff besides media playback. There are other endpoints that can be secure using your reverse proxy without breaking any apps.

Jellyfin just lets everyone in that can guess a filepath

That's not how the endpoint works. It is a randomized UUID.

Depending on your security posture, this may be an issue for you. It is not for me, and likely is not for many other users. My media is not sensitive information. My email and other identification info is.

Edit: formatting

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[–] rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Don't expose jellyfin to the internet and it won't be hacked. But you are forced to make a Plex account, if you want to use Plex.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 8 points 1 day ago (11 children)

Don't expose Jellyfin and you don't have a competitor program that does what Plex does... stop recommending it as a replacement if it's not a replacement. And this is ignoring that it's recommended to expose to the internet on their own documents.

But you are forced to make a Plex account, if you want to use it.

You've missed the point. You can't be mad at plex for taking action and closing security gaps after becoming aware of them... then in the same breath recommend a service that can't even be on the internet because it's so poorly secured.

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