During a company meeting at town hall today, Bob Iger – the CEO of Disney – gave a shocking revelation to his staff. According to Iger, hackers claim to have stolen a copy of an unreleased Disney movie. The alleged hackers have now threatened to release the movie.
The title of the Disney movie is unknown
When dropping this Disney bombshell on his staff during the company meeting, the CEO did not mention what the title of the alleged hacked movie was. He just noted to his staff that the hackers were asking for a rather large bitcoin payment in exchange for not releasing the movie.
Iger says Disney will not pay hackers
The hackers said that they would release the Disney movie in five minute snippets – until the entire movie is released -- if they did not receive payment. News outlets are beginning to report that there is a very real chance that the hackers will follow through on the threat – assuming the threat is real and they have hacked a copy of an unreleased Disney movie. This is because Iger vowed on Monday following his company meeting that Disney would not pay hackers in exchange for not releasing the movie.
Is history repeating itself?
Those who follow entertainment news pretty regularly are likely experiencing a little déjà vu as this is more or less the same thing that recently happened to Netflix.
Hackers were able to hack into the production server which was hosting Season 5 of “Orange Is The New Black” which is scheduled to be released on Netflix this month.
These particular hackers made an attempt to hold “Orange Is The New Black” ransom in an attempt to receive a huge payout from Netflix. They threatened to release Season 5 if the payment was not received.
When Netflix would not budge on the ransom demand, episodes of Season 5 started to appear on torrent websites. It is, however, worth noting there are still ten episodes from Season 5 of “Orange Is The New Black” that have yet to be released.
Unclear if these incidents are connected
At the moment, it is unknown whether or not these two hacking incidents are connected.
The hackers that stole Season 5 of “Orange Is The New Black” did claim to steal “at least three dozen” other movies and TV shows from the server they hacked. In addition to releasing some “Orange Is The New Black” episodes, the hackers also released a different Netflix Original Movie.
The next two Disney movies to hit theaters include “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” and “Cars 3." Could one of these be the movies that the hackers allegedly stole? Is it possible that these hackers are the same ones that stole “Orange Is The New Black”? Time will reveal if the hackers really did steal his unnamed Disney movie as the company has no intention of paying them off.
