The protests on Reddit are getting louder. The “blackout” of thousands of subreddits, which accumulate millions of followers, is now joined by a group of hackers who try to put the balance in favor of developers and users. And, as you can imagine, they don’t come with very good intentions.
BlackCat is a group of hackers specializing in ransomware that claims responsibility for an attack on Reddit’s systems that took place earlier this year. Through phishing, the attackers claim to have stolen nearly 80 gb of data from the platform, and have threatened Reddit with publication if their demands are not met.
First of all, BlackCat is demanding $4.5 million from the company in exchange for the stolen data, a typical demand of such criminal groups. On the other hand, the hackers seem to be against Reddit’s recent policy changes regarding its API, and demands that it repeal them.
Reddit said in February, just after the hack occurred, that this phishing attack was very “sophisticated and targeted” with the internal data and documents that were stolen, including contact information for Reddit employees and advertisers on the platform. The hacking group did not access non-public user data, according to the company.
Blackcat’s threats could be a setback for Reddit, which has the platform’s entire developer community against it. Until recently, developers of apps for Reddit did not have to pay for the use of the API, but now the company requires a monthly payment, based on the requests made, to keep them running. In addition to the fact that the API is now payable, the more serious problem would be the high price that developers claim they would have to pay.
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