A hacker group calling itself The Dark Overlord (TDO) has leaked at least 10 of 13 episodes from the unreleased Season 5 of the Netflix original series “Orange is the New Black,” reportedly after media streaming major Netflix’s partner studio Larson Studios refused to pay the hackers a ransom. Now, the group is threatening to leak even more unreleased movies and TV shows if the company doesn’t pay up.
Orange is the New Black Season 5 is scheduled to run from June 9, 2017, and there are 13 episodes in total. TDO says that only 10 of them were available when they hacked into Larson Studios’ servers.
This Saturday, TDO posted links on Twitter pointing to a page on Pastebin and a GitHub profile with the download links to the stolen episodes, and also uploaded them to Pirate Bay. Only the Pirate Bay copies remain at this time, according to reports; the others have been taken down.
And so let it be read that the loathsome giants do too fall. Hello Netflix, we’ve arrived: https://t.co/Fmb1gsZf4a
— thedarkoverlord (@tdohack3r) April 28, 2017
TDO also posted a statement on Pastebin (since removed) that said:
“It didn’t have to be this way, Netflix. You’re going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We’re quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves. And to the others: there’s still time to save yourselves. Our offer(s) are still on the table – for now.”
The story goes back to late last year, when The Dark Overlord hackers said they managed to steal “hundreds of GBs of unreleased and non-public media” from Larson Studios. They’ve also stolen intellectual property from other studios, such as CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, IFC, E! among others.
Subsequently, they negotiated a deal with the company and even had an alleged “contract” between them and Larson Studios for the latter to pay 50 BTC (Bitcoins), worth more than $70,000, by January 31.
TDO did not reveal this information during an encrypted chat interview to DataBreaches.net, but a copy of the said contract was reportedly obtained by DataBreaches.net, and contained the above information.
Orange is the New Black is not the only piece of IP that TDO stole, apparently. 2017 episodes and seasons, as well as several movies, have been stolen from hacked servers of various studios. Here’s a list, as published by DataBreaches.net:
A Midsummers Nightmare – TV Movie
Above Suspicion – Film
Bill Nye Saves The World – TV Series
Breakthrough – TV Series
Brockmire – TV Series
Bunkd – TV Series
Celebrity Apprentice (The Apprentice) – TV Series
Food Fact or Fiction – TV Series
Handsome – Film
Hopefuls – TV Series
Hum – Short
Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia – TV Series
Jason Alexander Project – TV Series
Liza Koshy Special – YoutubeRed
Lucha Underground – TV Series
Lucky Roll – TV Series
Making History ) – TV Series
Man Seeking Woman – TV Series
Max and Shred – TV Series
Mega Park – TV Series
NCIS Los Angeles – TV Series
New Girl – TV Series
Orange Is The New Black – TV SeriesPortlandia – TV Series
Rebel In The Rye – Film
Steve Harveys Funderdome – TV Series
Story of God with Morgan Freeman – TV Series
Superhuman – TV Series
The Arrangement – TV Series
The Catch – TV Series
The Middle – TV Series
The Stanley Dynamic – TV Series
The Thundermans – TV Series
Undeniable with Joe Buck – TV Series
Win It All – Film
X Company – TV Series
XXX Return of Xander Cage – Film
The upshot of the Larson-TDO deal was that Larson Studios reneged on their “contract”, and stopped responding to TDO, hence the leaked episodes.
Between the January 31 deadline and now, TDO seems to have moved its sights directly to Netflix, attempting to extort them for money in exchange for not releasing any more unreleased programming.
In another post on Pastbin, TDO wrote this:
“Armed with this information, we naturally approached Netflix and the others in an attempt to devise a mutually-beneficial arrangement where we are paid and Netflix and friends don’t wake up to find their hard work plastered on the internet. Our proposals went unanswered so our hands have been forced. We were quite offended by our targets’ responses (or lack thereof).”
Who’s next on TDO’s list? We don’t know, but the hackers posted this on Twitter:
Who is next on the list? FOX, IFC, NAT GEO, and ABC. Oh, what fun we’re all going to have. We’re not playing any games anymore.
— thedarkoverlord (@tdohack3r) April 29, 2017
Netflix did not respond directly to the leaks, but did issue this statement to several media and news websites:
“We are aware of the situation. A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved.”
Thousands of people have started following @tdohack3r on Twitter, but before you do the same, think about what you’re doing: do you really want to encourage hackers that have previously held patient medical records for ransom and forced clinics to pay up to not reveal that information? These are not heroes, people. They’re cheap crooks with some tech skills, no more, and no different from any other criminal that could someday target you.
Remember that, and don’t encourage them by downloading the material they’ve leaked. There’s a lot of hard work from honest people that goes into producing shows like Orange is the New Black, and companies like Netflix provide a valuable service to people who want a cable or satellite alternative. Don’t spoil that.
How would you like it if someone held your paycheck for ransom in exchange for half the amount?
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Source: DataBreaches.net