New Delhi, Jun 19 (IANS): Mired in controversy over its application programming interface (API) changes, Reddit is now in for further trouble as hackers have threatened to release 80GB data stolen from the social discussion platform.

The BlackCat ransomware gang, also known as ALPHV, is demanding $4.5 million in exchange for deleting the stolen data, reports TechCrunch.

The hackers have 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".

At the time, hackers had allegedly accessed employee information and internal documents during a "highly-targeted" phishing attack.

Reddit didn't share any further details about the attack or who was behind it.

BlackCat was also linked to a March attack on Western Digital that saw hackers steal 10TB data from the company, including customer information.

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 per cent drop from the website's average daily traffic over the previous month.