Police in India arrest four over Game of Thrones leak
HBO has had something of a rough time of things lately, suffering not only a hack that led to a series of leaks, but also a Game of Thrones leak via a distribution partner. Police in India have now arrested four people in connection with the leak of the episode The Spoils of War.
Shortly after the leak occurred, HBO's distribution partner Star India admitted it was the source of the episode. Now three employees and one former employee of Prime Focus Technology -- a company which processes Game of Thrones ready for streaming on Hotstar -- are being questioned in relation to the leak.
See also:
- Game of Thrones S07E04, The Spoils of War, leaks online
- HBO calls in FBI over Game of Thrones hack as Indian distributor admits it is the source of S07E04 leak
A Star India watermark on the leaked episode made it clear that the distributor was in some way connected to the leak, and the company said at the time: "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."
In a statement to the AFP news agency, Deputy Commissioner of Police Akbar Pathan said:
We investigated the case and have arrested four individuals for unauthorized publication of the fourth episode from season seven.
The four suspects were identified after investigators were able to use employee IDs to determine who had accessed Prime Focus' servers. Abhishekh Ghadiyal, Mohammed Suhail and two other suspects have been charged with computer-related offenses and crimes, and will be detained until August 21.