Was Game of Thrones season 7 episode 4 leaked for love?
Love conquers all. Even high-security firewalls. According to Mumbai Police, the fourth episode of the ongoing Game of Thrones season seven could have been leaked by the girlfriend of one of the four accused in the case, Alok Sharma.
Sharma had in earlier investigations revealed "that they were curious about the fourth episode of the ongoing season" and had, hence, accessed it illegally.
Initial police investigations into the matter have also found that the episode was first accessed for personal consumption, but things may have slipped out of control after he passed on the episode to his girlfriend who may have leaked it to her friends.
Things we do for love
Not having found any links to tie the leak of the episode to monetary benefits, the police turned their focus towards other angles – one of them being the accused Alok Sharma leaking the episode to "please his girlfriend".
Speaking to The Indian Express, a former member of the investigating team said, “Initially, there were suspicions that one of the accused had accessed the episode as his girlfriend wanted to see it. The girlfriend had then passed it onto others, one of whom uploaded it online.”
However, a senior officer with the cyber police probing the case clarified this "leak for love" is only one of the many angles being probed by the police. He said, “While it is true that one of the accused, Sharma, did send the link to his girlfriend, it is only one of the angles we are probing. He sent the links to other accused as well.”
Insider job?
A report published in Hindustan Times adds more light into the matter. According to the report, the crime branch of Mumbai Police is checking if the leak was executed to "tarnish the image of Prime Focus Technologies" (PFT), which stores episode of Game of Thrones for HBO's Indian partner, Hotstar.
HT sources in the crime branch claim that Mohamad Suhail, an ex-employee of PFT, was the first to access the episode, later shared with the other three accused.
As the investigators continue to probe the motivations behind the leak, the four accused who were earlier produced in front of a magistrate court on August 21, have been remanded to police custody until August 24.
Even though the police are still investigating as to how Suhail managed to access the secure system and bypass the security protocols to leak the episode to the other three accused, Prime Focus Technologies, in a media release, has said the incident was not a system hack, but an insider job by three of the accused who worked for the company.
In a statement, it said, "It is painful to note that in spite of constant efforts to sensitise employees on the critical need to adhere to ethical practices and highest protocols of content security, full time serving employees of the company have colluded to commit a crime that can destabilise not only the organisations involved but thousands of livelihoods."