A group of hackers claim that it has stolen over a terabyte of data from Disney’s internal slack. The company is currently investigating.
A hacker group calling itself Nullbulge claims that it’s stolen and published online over 1 terabyte of data from Disney’s internal Slack channels.
That data, according to the group’s website, includes “unreleased projects, raw images and code,” and other sensitive corporate information.
Nullbulge says that it’s a “hacktivist group protecting artists’ rights and ensuring fair compensation for their work,” and that “our hacks are not those of malice, but to punish those caught stealing.” The group doesn’t appear to have explained why it’s decided to target Disney.
The Wall Street Journal, which has looked at some of the data published online, says that it contains conversations and information about site maintenance, ESPN employees, with the files going back to 2019 and perhaps earlier.
The reports have emerged almost exactly a decade after the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, in which thousands of documents were stolen from the firm’s servers and published on WikiLeaks and other platforms. The attack threw Sony Pictures into disarray, with personal emails about movie stars and films still in production (such as Spectre) causing considerable public embarrassment. The group of hackers, which called itself Guardians of Peace, also wiped Sony’s servers, costing the company millions as it sought to repair the damage.
Guardians of the Peace cited the then-unreleased comedy The Interview – which depicted the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – as a motive for the attack. In the wake of the incident, Sony Pictures co-chairperson Amy Pascal stepped down, though she claimed a few days later that she’d been fired.
As for the alleged Disney hack, it remains to be seen whether the leaked data is as consequential as the group claims. According to Variety, a Disney spokesperson has said that the company is “investigating this matter”.
