Plex and device security

General Discussions
1

I’ll be traveling out of the country for an extended period of time for business. Of course, I want to continue to use Plex to stream my media, but I am concerned about security and privacy of my information on the Plex system being compromised by unsecured networks, which is primarily what I will have access to while I am away. Is there anything I should be doing to protect myself while I am away, or should I just not use the system altogether until I return?

2

Use your system.

3

Set ‘Secure Connections’ to ‘Forced’ under
Settings - Server - Network (restart Plex Server afterwards)

Then it depends on whether the hotspot you are using abroad is trying to spy on encrypted connections or not. If it does, the Plex connection will simply not work at all and you are safe.
If you can play your content, you can be sure that the connection from your server to your client is reasonably secure.

You should prefer the ‘mobile’ Plex clients like iOS or Android because these contain some workarounds when a network has not a reliable name resolution for domains on the .direct TLD. This is used with ‘Secure Connections’ - so if name resolution is sketchy, secure connections won’t work reliably.

4

@OttoKerner said:
Set ‘Secure Connections’ to ‘Forced’ under
Settings - Server - Network (restart Plex Server afterwards)

Then it depends on whether the hotspot you are using abroad is trying to spy on encrypted connections or not. If it does, the Plex connection will simply not work at all and you are safe.
If you can play your content, you can be sure that the connection from your server to your client is reasonably secure.

You should prefer the ‘mobile’ Plex clients like iOS or Android because these contain some workarounds when a network has not a reliable name resolution for domains on the .direct TLD. This is used with ‘Secure Connections’ - so if name resolution is sketchy, secure connections won’t work reliably.

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/206225077-How-to-Use-Secure-Server-Connections

Thanks a lot for this. This is really helpful. Do you know anything about vpn? Would it be okay to use the Plex system in conjunction with that, or is that not necessary?

5

@techienista said:
Do you know anything about vpn? Would it be okay to use the Plex system in conjunction with that, or is that not necessary?

I don’t use VPNs at all myself. I only read the questions here in the fourms from users who are trying to use it. Apparently, only a few of the available VPN solutions can be made to work with Plex.

For a pure Plex client operation, I think the bundled ‘secure connections’ in Plex is sufficiently secure. Mainly because it is done with security in mind, so if someone is attempting to interfere with the connection, it will cease to work.

Maybe you can use a VPN with Plex, but I cannot gurarantee that it is configured securely. And if someone attempts a man-in-the-middle attack, the outcome should be the same: the connection should cease to work.

6

I never use vpn with Plex and agree with the above, the secure connection should be enough. I do understand your concerns though but Plex itself is pretty secure.