Crunchyroll, the popular subscription-based anime streaming service owned by Sony Group Corp. (NYSE:SONY), is investigating a reported cyberattack that may have exposed the personal data of millions of users.

Hackers Claim Access Through Third-Party Support Worker

The platform told BleepingComputer that it is aware of the claims and is actively collaborating with top cybersecurity experts to investigate the situation.

The statement followed claims by a threat actor who contacted BleepingComputer last Thursday, asserting they breached Crunchyroll on March 12 at 9 p.m. ET by accessing the Okta SSO account of a support agent.

Threat actors targeted a support agent employed by Telus International, a company that manages Crunchyroll customer support tickets.

Hackers allegedly infected the agent's computer with malware, stealing credentials that granted access to multiple Crunchyroll systems, including Zendesk, Google Workspace Mail, Jira and Slack, the report said.

Millions Of Records Allegedly Stolen

The attackers claim they extracted roughly 8 million support ticket records, with 6.8 million unique email addresses.

Stolen data reportedly included user names, login information, email addresses, IP addresses and general geographic locations.

Crunchyroll had a paid member base of over 17 million as of March 2025.

Ransom Attempt Reported

The hackers allegedly sent a $5 million extortion demand to Crunchyroll to prevent public release of the stolen data.

The company reportedly did not respond to the ransom demand. Threat actors say their access was revoked after approximately 24 hours.

Crunchyroll did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments.

Price Action: Sony closed at $20.68, up 2.27% on Monday and rose slightly in after-hours trading to $20.71, up 0.13%, according to Benzinga Pro.

Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings show that SONY is underperforming in short, medium and long-term metrics, though its Value score remains strong, placing it in the 91st percentile.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo courtesy: Shutterstock