‘Game of Thrones’ Episode 4 leaked from Star India: Report
London, Aug 5 (IANS) An unreleased Episode 4 of ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 7 — to be shown on HBO on the night of August 6 — has been leaked and it is not from an earlier HBO hack but from its distribution partner Star India, the media reported on Saturday.
According to The Verge, the leaked Episode 4 has Star India’s logo seen appearing throughout the episode leaked on the internet.
A spokesperson from Star India acknowledged the leak in a statement given to The Verge.
“This confirms the compromise of Episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon,” a Star India spokesperson was quoted as saying.
“We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partner’s end’ to swiftly determine the cause. This is a grave issue and we are taking appropriate legal remedial action,” the report added.
According to the report, “Star India appears to have leaked the episode online through its own website”.
Mobile comparison website ‘Smartprix’ spotted a direct link to the MP4 of the episode at Star India’s own distribution site.
Later, people started downloading ‘GoT’ Episode 4 and sharing it with friends on various social media platforms.
Earlier, in a separate data breach, the hackers who leaked unaired episodes of HBO’s shows including ‘GoT’ have now threatened to release additional content on August 6.
The hacker group wrote in an automated email reply sent to Variety.com, that it will release the leak gradually every week and added that the next release may come this Sunday at 12 GMT (5 p.m. IST).
The group also repeated its claim that it had obtained a total of 1.5TB of data when it broke into HBO’s computer networks.