{"id":26569,"date":"2025-12-18T08:45:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/pay-the-ransom-or-hackers-warn-pornhub-data-leak-could-turn-ugly-for-premium-users-tech-news\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T08:45:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:45:41","slug":"pay-the-ransom-or-hackers-warn-pornhub-data-leak-could-turn-ugly-for-premium-users-tech-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/18\/pay-the-ransom-or-hackers-warn-pornhub-data-leak-could-turn-ugly-for-premium-users-tech-news\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pay The Ransom Or\u2026\u2019: Hackers Warn Pornhub Data Leak Could Turn Ugly For Premium Users | Tech News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"story-9777892\">\n<p><span class=\"jsx-395e0e0beb19cb6e jsx-3759419209\">Last Updated:<\/span><time class=\"jsx-395e0e0beb19cb6e jsx-3759419209\">December 18, 2025, 13:24 IST<\/time><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"asubttl-9777892\" class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248 asubttl-schema\">Pornhub data leak has become a big concern as the hacker group behind the breach is demanding heavy ransom to keep its data private.<\/h2>\n<div class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248\">\n<figure class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248 amimg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Pornhub is facing the risk of its premium user's data published by the hacker. (Photo: AI generated)\" title=\"Pornhub is facing the risk of its premium user's data published by the hacker. (Photo: AI generated)\" src=\"https:\/\/images.news18.com\/ibnlive\/uploads\/2021\/07\/1627283897_news18_logo-1200x800.jpg?impolicy=website&amp;width=400&amp;height=225\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Pornhub is facing the risk of its premium user&#8217;s data published by the hacker. (Photo: AI generated)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"0\" class=\"story_para_0\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Pornhub has been hit with a serious data breach and the hacking group behind the leak is demanding a ransom from the platform to keep the data of its premium users private. The hacking group named <em>ShinyHunters<\/em> has taken the onus for stealing the user data of Pornhub and is now seeking money to prevent its data from being published in public domain that will leave millions vulnerable to future phishing and email attacks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"1\" class=\"story_para_1\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The details about the premium Pornhub users have been verified by <em>Reuters<\/em> in its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/americas\/hacking-group-shinyhunters-claims-theft-data-users-leading-sex-site-pornhub-2025-12-16\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">report<\/a> who have managed to get sample data from the hackers to verify the authenticity of the leak. ShinyHunters have a history of such data breaches, and seeking ransom to hand over the data back to the victim and Pornhub is the latest big fish caught in its cyber trap.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"2\" class=\"story_para_2\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>We Want Payment In Bitcoin<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"3\" class=\"story_para_3\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">\u201cWe\u2019re demanding a ransom payment in Bitcoin to prevent the publication of [Pornhub] data and delete the data,&#8221; the hacker group has been quoted by Reuters making its demands to keep the Pornhub user data private.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"4\" class=\"story_para_4\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Pornhub has disclosed the data breach in its December 12 statement but has not mentioned about its plans to meet the ransom demands from the hacker group. The platform will be worried about the data of its premium users, who pay money to get benefits like high-definition content, watch videos ad-free and even get to experience the content in virtual reality mode.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"5\" class=\"story_para_5\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The Pornhub data leak was first reported by <em>Bleeping Computer<\/em>, which is claimed to have over 100 million daily visitors and is one of the most popular platforms to host raunchy and explicit content. The company has not shared the details about how the breach was done, and neither the hackers refused to divulge its modus operandi for the attack.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p id=\"6\" class=\"story_para_6\"><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Pornhub did face a cybersecurity incident back in November 2025, caused by an issue with a service provider called Mixpanel but it seems the data accessed by ShinyHunters has not been sourced through that breach. It will be interesting to see if Pornhub caves into the ransom demands or finds another way to retrieve its premium user\u2019s data from the hacker group. <\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"jsx-ff4fe2ed9527ebb3 midgprfd\">\n<div class=\"jsx-ff4fe2ed9527ebb3 midgprfdbtn\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.news18.com\/dlxczavtqcctuei\/news18\/static\/images\/english\/google-color.svg\" width=\"36\" height=\"36\" alt=\"\" class=\"jsx-ff4fe2ed9527ebb3\"\/><span class=\"jsx-ff4fe2ed9527ebb3\">Click here to add News18 as your preferred news source on Google. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248 atbtlink fp\"><span>First Published:<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"rs\">\n<p>December 18, 2025, 13:24 IST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248 brdcrmb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/\">News<\/a>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/tech\/\">tech<\/a>  <span class=\"brdout\"> \u2018Pay The Ransom Or\u2026\u2019: Hackers Warn Pornhub Data Leak Could Turn Ugly For Premium Users<\/span><\/div>\n<div id=\"coral-wrap\" class=\"jsx-ba4d8f086a12294f \">\n<div class=\"jsx-ba4d8f086a12294f coral-cont\">\n<div class=\"jsx-ba4d8f086a12294f coltoptxt\">Disclaimer: Comments reflect users\u2019 views, not News18\u2019s. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/disclaimer\/\" class=\"jsx-ba4d8f086a12294f\">Terms of Use<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/privacy_policy\/\" class=\"jsx-ba4d8f086a12294f\">Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"jsx-ee90caf6118df965 jsx-3577711248 rmbtn news18_read_more\">Read More<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/tech\/pay-the-ransom-or-hackers-warn-pornhub-data-leak-could-turn-ugly-for-premium-users-ws-el-9777892.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Updated:December 18, 2025, 13:24 IST Pornhub data leak has become a big concern as the hacker group behind the breach is demanding heavy ransom to keep its data private. Pornhub is facing the risk of its premium user&#8217;s data published by the hacker. (Photo: AI generated) Pornhub has been hit with a serious data&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}