Episodes of Orange is the New Black season five have begun appearing online after being leaked. The situation is the result of a cyberattack on a post-production company, and subsequent ransom of 50 Bitcoins being demanded. Several other shows were also supposedly stolen in the attack; although this has not yet been verified.
Thedarkoverlord claimed responsibility for the attack on Larson Studios, an audio post-production company. Nobody is entirely certain about the identity of Thedarkoverlord, or how many people are involved in the operation.
All that is known is that the hacker(s) infiltrated and stole nine episodes of Orange is the New Black from Larson servers. A ransom demand was sent to Larson, who failed to respond. The hackers then switched targets to Netflix, and demanded the same amount. Again, their demands were ignored. As a result, the hackers released all nine episodes of the series online.
Netflix is not the only studio to have intellectual property stolen in the attack on Larson Studios. In total, 37 shows were exfiltrated from the servers; including some feature length films.
Not all the stolen shows are in the same position. Some, like XXX 3: The Return of Xander Cage, have already seen theatrical release. Meaning that there is little reason for the companies to feel extra threatened by the ransom demands.
Still, the hackers are preparing to launch another round of leaks; tweeting that it is “time to play another round”. It’s unknown which show will be the next to be affected but FOX, IFC, NAT GEO, and ABC are all on the list of studios affected by the data breach.
[Source: Data Breaches]
