GoT Season 7: After Leaking Spoils Of War, Now Hackers Leak Details Of Ep 5 Eastwatch
"We continue to work around the clock with outside cyber security firms and law enforcement to resolve the incident,” said an HBO representative.
Looks like, for Game of Thrones, which is one of the most popular American television shows, the worry continues. After the fourth episode ‘Spoils of War’ and its script, was leaked way before its TV debut, now, the fifth episode, which is titled – ‘Eastwatch’ has been leaked. Reportedly, the hacker group had threatened the channel (HBO) to leak the next episode on August 6. They had written, in an automated email reply to Variety.com, that it will leak the episodes gradually every week. The message also read that the next episode will be released this Sunday at 12 GMT (5 pm IST). They did as they warned.
It’s really sad that we are not able to do anything to eradicate such ugly attempts of illegal hacking. After watching Spoils of War’s ending with a spectacular battle that saw the Lannister forces decimated by Drogon and the Dothraki and the preview of Eastwatch (fifth episode of season 7), which released two days ago, we can’t wait for the fifth episode to air on Hotstar. If you’re a die hard fan, you will find it too difficult to refrain yourself from watching the leaked episode while the links are doing the rounds on Whatsapp and Facebook. While you’re tempted to watch, you also do not wish to contribute to piracy.
An appropriate legal remedial action needs to be taken at this ugly attempt of the hacker. To this, a representative of HBO said, “HBO believed that further leaks might emerge from this cyber incident when we confirmed it last week. As we said, the forensic review is ongoing.”
The news of hack first broke out on last Tuesday when the hackers reportedly released a handful of unaired episodes of HBO shows, as well as other internal data, online.“While it has been reported that a number of emails have been made public, the review to date has not given us a reason to believe that our e-mail system as a whole has been compromised. We continue to work around the clock with outside cyber security firms and law enforcement to resolve the incident,” the representative added.
Speaking of the leak of ‘Eastwatch (the latest episode), the leak apparently had seventh season’s fifth episode plot details alongside “castings, script summaries and marketing materials” for the popular fantasy drama, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Reportedly, the network has acknowledged the hack but the details about the types of files that the hackers have been able to obtain are yet to be cracked. Also, the reports suggest that ‘The Spoils of War’ has been leaked from Star India, one of the partner networks of HBO, as there’s a Star India water mark on the video; but apparently even Star India has been hacked it seems.
Despite such attempts, there is a good news that the leak didn’t affect the ratings of the show, in fact, ‘The Spoils of War’ has raked in the highest amount of views on its airing! According to the Entertainment Weekly, the episode scored 10.2 million viewers for its debut airing on Sunday night at 9 pm. Thanks to loyal fans of GOT.
Of course many have watched the leaked episode as they could wait till its actual airing, but I believe there are some who do not like to watch the episode that has such bad print. Also, the ones who have already watched would have still watched it once again as it does not get boring. So, let’s hope that we rake in more views on the fifth episode’s airing.
