Hacker Group Claims to Have Leaked Internal Disney Slack Messages

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CNN
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A group of activist hackers claimed to have leaked thousands of internal Disney messaging channels, which included information about unreleased projects, raw footage, computer code and some login credentials.

Nullbulge, the “hacktivist group,” claimed responsibility for the leak and said it had leaked a massive 1.2 terabytes of information from Disney’s Slack communications software. In an email sent to CNN on Monday, the group said it gained access through “a guy with access to Slack and cookies.” The email also claimed the group was based in Russia.

“The user knew we had them, tried to kick us once but let us back in before the second time,” the email said.

CNN has not been able to independently verify these claims.

In a statement Monday, Disney said it is “investigating this matter.” Disney’s entertainment monolith spans a wide range of divisions and businesses, from ESPN to Hulu and Disney+ to ABC News.

The group also said it wanted to protect the rights of artists and the remuneration of their work, particularly in the era of artificial intelligence.

“Disney was our target because of the way it handles artist contracts, its approach to AI, and its pretty blatant disregard for the consumer,” the hacker group said via email.

Nullbulge had already hinted at this giant release on its social networks in recent weeks. For example, in June, the group published on X what appears to be data on visitors, reservations and revenues from Disneyland Paris.

Artificial intelligence has been a major sticking point in negotiations during the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America strikes. Writers worry that ChatGPT could write scripts for them, while actors worry that computer-generated imagery, or CGI, could replace them entirely.

The hackers said they released the data because any requests to Disney would be futile.

“If we said to them, ‘Hello Disney, we have all your Slack data,’ they would instantly crash the system and try to eliminate us. In a duel, it’s best to shoot first,” the email said.

In 2014, a mega-hack at Sony Pictures linked to North Korea led to an international crisis, exposing company executives’ emails, celebrity aliases, Social Security numbers and entire movie scripts.

CNN’s Erika Tulfo and Jon Passantino contributed to this report.