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Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop a cryptominer
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peppericecream
lemmy.dbzer0.com
peppericecream@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-07-27
Posted:   Subject: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop a cryptominer Quote

The update got released over 2 months ago. So sensible admins should not be getting hit by this.

Also I use Jellyfin btw.

360   Original
hereiamagain
sh.itjust.works
hereiamagain@sh.itjust.works
Joined: 2025-08-15
#2 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Am not sensible admin. Though I did just run a backup and update. How likely am I FUBAR?

Edit: I run Plex on a dedicated proxmox VM. Theoretically I could nuke it and start over with my Plex database file. Though there's some config I'd have to do again and I don't want to

6
BakedCatboy
lemmy.ml
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-12-14
#3 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

As someone who has nearly all internet facing software auto update with watchtower nightly my cortisol is so low

24
ExcessShiv
lemmy.dbzer0.com
ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-04-23
#4 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw.

Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

140
frongt
lemmy.zip
frongt@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-07-31
#5 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I'm guessing this requires it be exposed to the Internet. Please stop exposing services to the Internet.

-18
sanpo
sopuli.xyz
sanpo@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2023-06-30
#6 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I'm guessing this requires it be exposed to the Internet. Please stop exposing services to the Internet.

That's pretty much the number one reason people say they won't move to Jellyfin - the ease of public access.

Even though exposing your shit to Internet is a terrible idea for most people.

15
Auli
lemmy.ca
Auli@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-06-17
#7 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

Nope

0
Auli
lemmy.ca
Auli@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-06-17
#8 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I'm guessing this requires it be exposed to the Internet. Please stop exposing services to the Internet.

Kind of defeats the purpose of Plex and Jellyfin.

42
Auli
lemmy.ca
Auli@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-06-17
#9 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

That's pretty much the number one reason people say they won't move to Jellyfin - the ease of public access. Even though exposing your shit to Internet is a terrible idea for most people.

I think people over blow how dangerous it is. Or maybe its better most people dont. I don't know I know the issues and I take measures to mitigate them. Then if someone gets in they would be limited to vlan. And if somebody gets out of that good wasted so much effort for nothing since I have nothing that would be worth that much trouble.

And before someone says identity pretty sire that has been in so many other leaks overt the years the information is pretty old.

6
magic_smoke
lemmy.blahaj.zone
magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Joined: 2025-01-27
#10 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

That's pretty much the number one reason people say they won't move to Jellyfin - the ease of public access. Even though exposing your shit to Internet is a terrible idea for most people.

Just throw a wireguard tunnel on your router and call it a day.

If ya gotta host public put a dedicated proxmox host on its own port on your router, make it a trunk line, and give every VM its own subnet/VLAN/Firewall ruleset.

3
frongt
lemmy.zip
frongt@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-07-31
#11 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I think people over blow how dangerous it is. Or maybe its better most people dont. I don't know I know the issues and I take measures to mitigate them. Then if someone gets in they would be limited to vlan. And if somebody gets out of that good wasted so much effort for nothing since I have nothing that would be worth that much trouble. And before someone says identity pretty sire that has bee...

Even without data compromise or pivoting, they can still mine crypto on your hardware, launch a ddos, spam email, do botnet stuff, or host CSAM.

4
bretton.dev
coves.social
bretton.dev@coves.social
Joined: 2026-08-22
#12 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Am not sensible admin. Though I did just run a backup and update. How likely am I FUBAR? Edit: I run Plex on a dedicated proxmox VM. Theoretically I could nuke it and start over with my Plex database file. Though there's some config I'd have to do again and I don't want to

I was also impacted, you need to remove the payload that got dumped:

Payload: /tmp/.pxb/{curl,wget}, /tmp/.spid

Two processes named khungtaskd / cron

They also stole your admin token so go to the Plex UI and log out of all devices for whichever account has ownership of the instance.

Then you can reclaim ownership and it resets the admin token.

You should likely be fine, I didn't have any crypto miners on mine, it was just in a docker instance and didn't have access outside of it. I would be much more worried if it was a direct install on a main PC.

Also install watch tower

10
i_stole_ur_taco
lemmy.ca
i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca
Joined: 2023-06-13
#13 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Sure explains why Plex was so cagey and uninformative when they emailed everyone to update their servers a couple months back. Not so much as a CVE report or change set.

A vulnerability? No…. 4 of them. And they stack.

44
peppericecream
lemmy.dbzer0.com
peppericecream@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-07-27
#14 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Kind of defeats the purpose of Plex and Jellyfin.

*defeats your purpose of Plex and Jellyfin

I just want a media server. I have no use case to make it available to the public internet.

7
peppericecream
lemmy.dbzer0.com
peppericecream@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Joined: 2024-07-27
#15 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

I think it's not a widely used phrase yet

5
Blue_Morpho
lemmy.world
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-11-14
#16 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Just throw a wireguard tunnel on your router and call it a day. If ya gotta host public put a dedicated proxmox host on its own port on your router, make it a trunk line, and give every VM its own subnet/VLAN/Firewall ruleset.

That's fine for your personal remote access but that doesn't help your 80 year old mother in law watch videos of the grandchildren on a Roku.

13
keithnator3000
lemmy.world
keithnator3000@lemmy.world
Joined: 2026-09-29
#17 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

I have everything locally and watch on VLC fwiw /s

5
Mister_Hangman
lemmy.world
Mister_Hangman@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-06
#18 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I was also impacted, you need to remove the payload that got dumped: Payload: /tmp/.pxb/{curl,wget}, /tmp/.spid Two processes named khungtaskd / cron They also stole your admin token so go to the Plex UI and log out of all devices for whichever account has ownership of the instance. Then you can reclaim ownership and it resets the admin token. You should likely be fine, I didn't have any crypto...

How fuxked am I if my plex is running on unraid

1
Sir. Haxalot
nord.pub

SirHaxalot@nord.pub
Joined: 2026-02-03
#19 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Sure explains why Plex was so cagey and uninformative when they emailed everyone to update their servers a couple months back. Not so much as a CVE report or change set. A vulnerability? No…. 4 of them. And they stack.

That kind of is the proper way to handle this. You don’t want to hint bad actors where to look and give people some time to update.

39
DarkSirrush
piefed.ca
DarkSirrush@piefed.ca
Joined: 2025-06-07
#20 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I have everything locally and watch on VLC fwiw /s

Now that is the arch of the self hosted streaming community.

12
Thomas Douwes
sopuli.xyz

thomasdouwes@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2023-06-07
#21 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Now that is the arch of the self hosted streaming community.

If VLC is arch, what is MPV?

3
lama
lemmy.world
lama@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-03
#22 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Just throw a wireguard tunnel on your router and call it a day. If ya gotta host public put a dedicated proxmox host on its own port on your router, make it a trunk line, and give every VM its own subnet/VLAN/Firewall ruleset.

WG works for us, but isn't scalable once it comes to sharing. It would provide too much friction for a lot of people

3
slash65
lemmy.world
slash65@lemmy.world
Joined: 2026-07-29
#23 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I was also impacted, you need to remove the payload that got dumped: Payload: /tmp/.pxb/{curl,wget}, /tmp/.spid Two processes named khungtaskd / cron They also stole your admin token so go to the Plex UI and log out of all devices for whichever account has ownership of the instance. Then you can reclaim ownership and it resets the admin token. You should likely be fine, I didn't have any crypto...

Second post I’ve seen mentioning watchtower… it quit being developed about a year ago and is read-only now. I quit recommending it since it’s not being actively developed any longer.

9
Bakkoda
lemmy.world
Bakkoda@lemmy.world
Joined: 2024-02-28
#24 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

If VLC is arch, what is MPV?

BSD

10
frongt
lemmy.zip
frongt@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-07-31
#25 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Second post I’ve seen mentioning watchtower… it quit being developed about a year ago and is read-only now. I quit recommending it since it’s not being actively developed any longer.

It was forked months ago and is actively developed https://github.com/nicholas-fedor/watchtower/

15
BakedCatboy
lemmy.ml
BakedCatboy@lemmy.ml
Joined: 2023-12-14
#26 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Second post I’ve seen mentioning watchtower… it quit being developed about a year ago and is read-only now. I quit recommending it since it’s not being actively developed any longer.

Yeah good call. I keep using an actively maintained fork because I can't be bothered to switch to another project.

2
Seralth
piefed.seralth.com

Seralth@piefed.seralth.com
Joined: 2026-10-04
#27 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

No nix is the new arch.

Lol

48
Seralth
piefed.seralth.com

Seralth@piefed.seralth.com
Joined: 2026-10-04
#28 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Kind of defeats the purpose of Plex and Jellyfin.

The only reason to expose it raw to the internet is because your hosting a piracy service.

You can easily keep everything inside of a wireguard VPN and expose nothing directly.

-13
Seralth
piefed.seralth.com

Seralth@piefed.seralth.com
Joined: 2026-10-04
#29 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

That's fine for your personal remote access but that doesn't help your 80 year old mother in law watch videos of the grandchildren on a Roku.

Slap a vpn on her computer or but a shitty dell from good will. Point the Roku at that and forward the traffic...?

Like this is a solvable setup and forget about it for the next 5 years. Sort of set up.

-1
pHr34kY
lemmy.world
pHr34kY@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-02
#30 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I'm guessing this requires it be exposed to the Internet. Please stop exposing services to the Internet.

Sir, this is /c/selfhosted.

20
Seralth
piefed.seralth.com

Seralth@piefed.seralth.com
Joined: 2026-10-04
#31 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

WG works for us, but isn't scalable once it comes to sharing. It would provide too much friction for a lot of people

I manage it with netbird.

Just have em install netbird, if it's on they can connect to my website. If it's off they can't.

It's literally three steps for each person, there's ways to make this easy. It just requires the host to put in the leg work

2
Gwaer
lemmy.world
Gwaer@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-07
#32 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I got hit by this a couple days ago.

3
sanpo
sopuli.xyz
sanpo@sopuli.xyz
Joined: 2023-06-30
#33 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

WG works for us, but isn't scalable once it comes to sharing. It would provide too much friction for a lot of people

It's really not. If people are too lazy to install one VPN app and import the tunnel config, then they can pay for paid streaming instead.

2
mlg
lemmy.world

mlg@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-29
#34 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw.

You shouldn't be talking with the amount of hilarious CVEs jellyfin has also had lmao

EDIT:

Literally a critical RCE a couple of months ago lol: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35031

Your downvotes are meaningless, please don't run Jellyfin publicly exposed without at least some form of secondary ACL whether it be a full blown VPN or just a lazy reverse proxy login like authentik.

And please run inside a non privliged container. Either use uidmap or go rootless.

I'm pretty sure there are multiple hackthebox machines based around jellyfin because of how notorious it used to be with bugs.

4
couldhavebeenyou
lemmy.zip
couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip
Joined: 2025-07-02
#35 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

The only reason to expose it raw to the internet is because your hosting a piracy service. You can easily keep everything inside of a wireguard VPN and expose nothing directly.

How do I get my grandparents tv on a vpn

23
non_burglar
lemmy.world
non_burglar@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-16
#36 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. You shouldn't be talking with the amount of hilarious CVEs jellyfin has also had lmao EDIT: Literally a critical RCE a couple of months ago lol: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/cve-2026-35031 Your downvotes are meaningless, please don't run Jellyfin publicly exposed without at least some form of secondary ACL whether it be a full blown VPN or just a lazy reverse proxy ...
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moodwrench
lemmy.world
moodwrench@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-22
#37 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

Everyone talks about Jellyfin, but I just switched to Emby and I couldn't be happier (no connect cloud stuff). Can someone please let me know why and how I just made the worst decision of my life please.

5
pory
lemmy.world

pory@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-17
#38 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Everyone talks about Jellyfin, but I just switched to Emby and I couldn't be happier (no connect cloud stuff). Can someone please let me know why and how I just made the worst decision of my life please.

The main reason is that if you switch from Plex to Emby you're going from paid licenseware (fully enshittified) to paid licenseware (not fully enshittified yet). It's like when everyone finally dropped Skype and moved to... Discord. Which hey it's closed source and owned by venture capital, but it doesn't suck yet!!! And now in 2026, Discord is what Discord is.

36
DarkSirrush
piefed.ca
DarkSirrush@piefed.ca
Joined: 2025-06-07
#39 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

BSD

And MPC is Windows?

1
Psythik
lemmy.world
Psythik@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-12-21
#40 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Also I use Jellyfin btw. Oh god, its the new Arch isn't it...

IDK why everyone here is in love with Jellyfin when we have Stremio/Nuvio. Jellyfin is a lot of work; with Nuvio all you do is browse like Netflix, and stream. No existing media library required.

-6
JimmyChezPants 🇨🇦
growers.social

jpaskaruk@growers.social
Joined: 2023-09-06
#41 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

IDK why everyone here is in love with Jellyfin when we have Stremio/Nuvio. Jellyfin is a lot of work; with Nuvio all you do is browse like Netflix, and stream. No existing media library required.

@Psythik Never heard of it, what's the license?@ExcessShiv

1
The Zen Cow Says Mu
infosec.pub
The_Zen_Cow_Says_Mu@infosec.pub
Joined: 2023-06-12
#42 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

If you want to expose plex to the open Internet (not a VPN) Don't open the plex port to the internet. Turn off the "remote access" setting and run it behind a reverse proxy instead.

14
fonix232
fedia.io
fonix232@fedia.io
Joined: 2023-06-13
#43 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

If you want to expose plex to the open Internet (not a VPN) Don't open the plex port to the internet. Turn off the "remote access" setting and run it behind a reverse proxy instead.

And if you run a reverse proxy, put crowdsec on it. The free options for filters are pretty well maintained.

9
Psythik
lemmy.world
Psythik@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-12-21
#44 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

@Psythik Never heard of it, what's the license?@ExcessShiv

What license? Like Jellyfin, It's for piracy. Basically every streaming service combined into one. It relies on torrents, cached torrents, and Usenet find you the fastest way to instantly steam anything you want.

-2
fonix232
fedia.io
fonix232@fedia.io
Joined: 2023-06-13
#45 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

[removed by moderator]
[removed by moderator]
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Decronym
Bot
Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz
Joined: 2026-01-05
#46 Posted: · edited   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
CSAM Child Sexual Abuse Material
DNS Domain Name Service/System
ISP Internet Service Provider
LXC Linux Containers
Plex Brand of media server package
SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native
UDP User Datagram Protocol, for real-time communications
VNC Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access
VPN Virtual Private Network
nginx Popular HTTP server

10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 7 acronyms.

[Thread #141 for this comm, first seen 19th Oct 2026, 23:00]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

5
fonix232
fedia.io
fonix232@fedia.io
Joined: 2023-06-13
#47 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

Even without data compromise or pivoting, they can still mine crypto on your hardware, launch a ddos, spam email, do botnet stuff, or host CSAM.

Not if your Jellyfin is set up correctly.

Read-only, rootless container with only the cache/transcode/config folders mounted RW+noexec - ideally both with a volume size limit.

Reverse proxy only the absolutely minimal ports needed, with some security measures (e.g. crowdsec transparent proxy, hooked up to both your firewall and reverse proxy to block malicious actors.

0
ripcord
lemmy.world

ripcord@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-10
#48 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I think it's not a widely used phrase yet

It definitely is in this community

8
ripcord
lemmy.world

ripcord@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-10
#49 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

I got hit by this a couple days ago.

How did you detect and remove it

6
moodwrench
lemmy.world
moodwrench@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-06-22
#50 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

The main reason is that if you switch from Plex to Emby you're going from paid licenseware (fully enshittified) to paid licenseware (not fully enshittified yet). It's like when everyone finally dropped Skype and moved to... Discord. Which hey it's closed source and owned by venture capital, but it doesn't suck yet!!! And now in 2026, Discord is what Discord is.

But I haven't paid anything to Emby (I don't need the code behind that key) and without cloud, I could continue using this version forever and they can't enshitify it

-1
Telodzrum
lemmy.world
Telodzrum@lemmy.world
Joined: 2023-07-13
#51 Posted:   Subject: Re: Plex vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild to drop ... Quote Reply

What license? Like Jellyfin, It's for piracy. Basically every streaming service combined into one. It relies on torrents, cached torrents, and Usenet find you the fastest way to instantly steam anything you want.
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