'Game of Thrones' Episode 4 leak unrelated to HBO hack last weekend
Jayme Deerwester
The broadcaster that carries Game of Thrones in India says Friday's brief leak of Episode 4 came from them and was unrelated to the last weekend's 1.5-terabyte hack of HBO.
“This confirms the compromise of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon," Star India said in a statement relayed by HBO. "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 episode was only out there for a few hours Friday morning before it was taken down. Attempts to reach the video stream shared on Twitter, which had been successful earlier in the morning, resulted in "file not found" errors by 9:30 a.m. ET.
'Game of Thrones': Get our newsletter, 'Postcards From Westeros'
Earlier this week, a company called IP-Echelon working on behalf of the cable network moved swiftly to issue the digital equivalent of a cease-and-desist notice to Google to remove links to material protected by copyright law.
But to borrow a phrase from the show, the hackers who pulled off last weekend's theft appear to be unbowed, unbent, unbroken: On Thursday, they distributed an email to news outlets threatening to post more of their digital booty Sunday night.
