Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Disney Blackmailed Over Apparent Movie Hack: Reports

Disney chief Bob Iger said Monday hackers claiming to have access to one of the company’s unreleased movies were demanding a “huge” ransom, according to US media reports.

Disney chief Bob Iger said Monday hackers claiming to have access to one of the company’s unreleased movies were demanding a “huge” ransom, according to US media reports.

He did not reveal which film had been stolen but said the company would not be giving in to the blackmail attempt, according to The Hollywood Reporter, quoting Iger from a meeting in New York with employees of the Disney-owned ABC television network.

The weekly reported on its website — citing multiple unnamed sources — that Disney is working with federal agents and monitoring for leaks online.

Movie website Deadline identified “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” which opens on May 26, as the target, without revealing its sources, while some film writers speculated on Twitter that Pixar’s “Cars 3,” due for release next month, might have been hit.

Although both films are expected to do well for Disney, their profits are likely to be dwarfed by another film on the company’s slate — “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” which hits theaters on December 15.

“IMO, if it were ‘Last Jedi,’ he would pay in a heartbeat. But ‘Pirates’… meh,” Ryan Parker, a staff writer on the Hollywood Reporter, speculated on Twitter.

The cyber-thieves demanded to be paid in online currency Bitcoin and are threatening to release five minutes of the movie, followed by 20-minute segments until the ransom is delivered.

The hack follows a recent cyber attack on internet streamer Netflix that led to 10 episodes of “Orange is the New Black” being leaked ahead of release.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales” is the fifth in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, which stars Johnny Depp and has taken $3.7 billion at the box office since 2003. 

Sci-fi novelist Paul Tassi, who comments on technology and the internet for Forbes Magazine, said “Pirates” would be unlikely to suffer were it the target, since its release date is so near.

“Yes, going to a movie in theaters is one of the more exhausting media experiences still left in society, but the kinds of people who are willing to pay money to see Johnny Depp stumble his way through a fifth ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movie in theaters are probably not the type to download a stolen copy of it right before it comes out,” he said.

“And like all movies, ‘Pirates’ would appear on torrent sites regardless practically the day of its release, so the hackers seem to be really over-estimating their impact here.” 

More than 200,000 computers in 150 countries were hit by a ransomware cyberattack, described as the largest-ever of its kind, over the weekend.

Since Friday, banks, hospitals and government agencies have been among a variety of targets for hackers exploiting vulnerabilities in older Microsoft computer operating systems.

Microsoft president Brad Smith said the US National Security Agency had developed the code used in the attack.

The Walt Disney Company didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.