Anime streaming service Crunchyroll has confirmed a data breach involving customer service ticket information following an incident with a third-party vendor after hackers claimed to have accessed user data and internal systems.
The streaming site, which Sony acquired from AT&T in 2020 for $1.18 billion, is operated as a joint venture between U.S.-based Sony Pictures Entertainment and Japan-based Aniplex. According to the company’s website, Crunchyroll has more than 2,000 titles in more than 12 languages and serves 15 million subscribers worldwide.
This week, reports surfaced online about attackers claiming access to Crunchyroll’s user data, with the hackers claiming to have obtained data on millions of users.
Crunchyroll said it is investigating the allegations.
“The investigation is ongoing and we continue to collaborate with leading cybersecurity experts,” the company said in a statement to TechCrunch, adding that it had not identified evidence of ongoing unauthorized access.
Separately, documents shared with TechCrunch by International Cyber Digest, an account focused on cybersecurity, indicate that the attackers may have accessed Crunchyroll’s Zendesk support system. Screenshots we saw appear to show the company’s internal Slack messages and stolen support data. They appear to have been stolen by hacking an employee of outsourcing giant Telus Digital, which handles Crunchyroll’s customer support. The hackers allegedly stole customer support ticket data until early 2025, at which point access was revoked.
The cybersecurity account said the hack was separate from the recent breach affecting Telus Digital, which the company confirmed last week.
Crunchyroll did not respond to additional questions about whether the third-party vendor is associated with support partner Telus Digital.
Telus Digital did not respond to a request for comment.
The hackers told BleepingComputer that they downloaded approximately 8 million support ticket records from Crunchyroll’s systems, including approximately 6.8 million unique email addresses, but this claim has not been independently verified. The hacker also told the publication that he gained access on March 12 after compromising an Okta single sign-on account belonging to a Crunchyroll support agent.
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