2023 BlackCat/ALPHV Extortion: $4.5M Demand and Threat to Leak 80GB Tied to API Pricing

In June 2023, the BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware group publicly claimed the February 2023 Reddit breach, saying it had exfiltrated roughly 80GB of compressed data. The group said it had privately contacted Reddit twice, on April 13 and June 16, demanding $4.5 million to delete the data. Unusually, the gang also demanded that Reddit roll back its controversial API pricing changes, threatening to leak the stolen material otherwise. Reddit did not pay or change its API plans, and the threatened bulk leak did not materialize publicly. The extortion attempt linked the company's data-security incident to the same period's developer and moderator backlash over API pricing.