Hollywood’s hacking pains are bigger than movie leaks
NEW YORK — Piracy is a long-running and even routine issue for Hollywood, whether it’s street vendors hawking bootleg DVDs on street corners or video uploaded to file-sharing sites like Pirate Bay. Now cybercriminals are also putting embarrassing chatter and other company secrets at risk.
The reputational risk from leaked email is much more difficult to calculate than any financial risk from piracy. “In some ways, that risk can be higher because you have no way of knowing what’s in those emails,” said Erik Rasmussen of Kroll Cyber Security.
The cataclysmal event in the back of everyone’s mind is the Sony hack in 2014 . While unreleased movies were leaked, what’s remembered is the chaos unleashed amid a network shutdown and the disclosure of derisive comments about such well-known actors as Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio and racially insensitive remarks about then-President Barack Obama.
Although the recent HBO leaks so far have fallen well short of the damage inflicted on Sony, there were concerns early on that hackers were setting the stage for an embarrassing sequel for Hollywood.