As hackers threaten to leak stolen Reddit data, the online forum has become a part of yet another controversy relating to its application programming interface (API) changes.

The BlackCat ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, is demanding $4.5 million in exchange for deleting 80GB of data and for Reddit to withdraw its API pricing changes, according to TechCrunch.

The report also adds that the gang claims to have stolen the data during a breach in February.

The group claimed to have stolen the data on a post on its dark web leak site.

A Reddit spokesperson confirmed that "BlackCat's claims relate to a cyber incident confirmed by Reddit on February 9".

Hackers had allegedly accessed employee information and internal documents during a "highly-targeted" phishing attack. At the time, Reddit CTO Christopher Slowe said that there was no evidence of any personal user data, such as passwords and accounts, being stolen.

No further details about the attack were shared.

However, on June 17, BlackCat said in a post that it had contacted Reddit twice — once on April 13 and on June 16 — but did not get any response. The group now expects to leak the data, as per TechCrunch.

“I told them in my first email that I would wait for their IPO to come along. But this seems like the perfect opportunity! We are very confident that Reddit will not pay any money for their data,” the group wrote.

The recent API changes have also led several popular third-party Reddit apps, including Apollo and Reddit is Fun, to announce their shutdown by June 30.

Meanwhile, during the subreddits' protest against the company's new application programming interface (API) pricing changes, Reddit's average daily traffic reportedly fell as compared to the last month.

More than 57 million daily visits to the social discussion platform were recorded on June 11, the day before the blackout started, across desktop and mobile web clients.

Daily visitors dropped below 55 million by the end of the first day of the protest. Less than 53 million daily visitors on the platform were then recorded at the end of June 13.

The 52,121,649 visits Reddit received on June 13 reflected a 6.6 percent drop from the website's average daily traffic over the previous month.

(With inputs from IANS)

(Edited by : Pradeep John)