Pirates 5 Attacked by Real Piracy
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Hackers claim to hold latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie hostage.
Disney is currently working with the FBI to thwart a group of online hackers who claim they have the fifth instalment of the popular Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” in their possession. The anonymous hackers are threatening to release the film in segments to the public unless their financial demands are met.
Disney has made no official statement, but insiders say they will not pay the ransom and will collaborate with law enforcement to stop such a release.
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Hector Monsegur, Director of Security Assessments for Rhino Security Labs, is a former hacker and now FBI informant. He claims such a hack is not easy to pull off against the studio themselves, but that the lower fish at the production company levels are easier to target. He says, “All these companies like Disney, Netflix and Discovery may have very good security teams but you have all these vendors and small production companies which don’t have great security and probably don’t have the budget to focus on their own security so hackers get in pretty easily.”
Monsegur goes on to say that tracking these hackers is a complicated process. New software can make it as though the hacking comes from one location, but in fact, comes from a different place altogether. “So you could have an Egyptian hacker who uses Russian software so it looks like it’s Russian but is actually from Egypt.”
No proof has currently been provided that the movie has in fact been stolen, but Disney is hoping to avoid a situation similar to that of Netflix a few weeks ago when the popular show “Orange is the New Black” was hacked and released. Leaks have been a growing problem over the last few years, with “The Hateful Eight”, “Spectre”, “Creed”, and “The Big Short” suffering from hacks. Quentin Tarantino even drastically rewrote “The Hateful Eight” after a leak exposed his entire screenplay online.
Lionsgate suffered at the box office a few years ago when “Expendables 3” was hacked; Disney hopes that its beloved Pirates franchise will avoid a similar fate.
Dead men may tell no tales next Friday, but hackers certainly might tell plenty of tales if this issue isn’t resolved soon.
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