Hackers steal Pirates of the Caribbean 5 and threaten Disney

Hackers claim to have stolen an upcoming Disney movie for ransom. According to Deadline, a digital copy of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is in the hands of hackers who are threatening to release the film online, unless they receive an enormous amount of money.

Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company are refusing to give in. The hackers have threatened to release the first five minutes of the movie and then in 20-minute segments if Disney don’t pay up. They are demanding the money via Bitcoin.

The hackers are thought to be the same group behind the recent Netflix leak, which saw Orange is the New Black season 5 uploaded online, prior to release. Netflix also refused to pay the ransom.

Twitter user ‘thedarkoverlord’ claimed to be behind the attack, and is warning other studios about more:

https://twitter.com/tdohack3r/status/858152416008577024

Disney is currently working with the FBI in finding the criminals, but former informant for the FBI, Hector Monsegur, thinks they face a tough task ahead:

“Attribution is probably the hardest thing the FBI is dealing with here. 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,” he said.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is scheduled to arrive on May 26th but Disney may be forced to release the film earlier or face a potential box office blow.