Hackers Are Holding Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean For Ransom

Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed to ABC that a hacking incident occured at Disney. It was revealed on Monday that the hack in question related to a film and that the hackers said they would release bits of the film in increments if their demands weren't met. It was revealed to Deadline that the film in question was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Releasing on May 26, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a prime target for hackers as it nears release. Releasing it before or during release could be detrimental to ticket sales. Disney declined to comment, but insiders have stated that the company refuses to pay the ransom.

The same incident recently happened to Netflix with their hit series Orange Is The New Black when hackers called for ransom and when they refused, 10 episodes of the next season wee leaked. If this is the same hacker group, or a similar one, this threat may be real.

Hectorr Monsegur, director of security assessment for Rhino Security Labs, was asked about incidents like this.

“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 said. “Remember back in the day when movies would leak online and they would go to a pirate bay? Now there has been a shift with the advent of ransomware so (these companies) are getting demands to pay for their own IP. Any studio is going to have a problem moving forward protecting their IPs.”

Since the initial reveal of this news, Disney has officially said it will not pay and is currently working with the FBI to investigate the hack.

Pirates of the Carribean may have lost some traction after the third entry, but the franchise has still pulled in $3.72 billion in worldwide box offices since 2003.