Paramount confirms information breach after cyberattack

The film studio and streaming large Paramount confirmed a knowledge breach this week involving the non-public info of fewer than 100 individuals.

The incident, which was first reported by Bleeping Laptop, was not associated to ransomware or to the exploitation of the MOVEit vulnerability, in accordance with sources at Paramount.

“We did examine an incident the place we discovered that an unauthorized celebration accessed sure recordsdata from our programs. Upon discovery of the unauthorized exercise, we took swift motion to establish and tackle the incident,” a spokesperson informed Recorded Future Information.

“The non-public info of lower than 100 people might have been accessed by the unauthorized celebration and people people and the related authorities have been notified. Information safety stays one among our prime priorities and we proceed to repeatedly replace and improve our safety protocols.”

The corporate despatched out breach notification letters to victims on August 11 explaining that between Might and June, hackers infiltrated their programs and accessed recordsdata inside sure components of their community.

After an investigation the studio found that names, dates of start, Social Safety numbers, driver’s license numbers, passport numbers and the particular person’s relationship to Paramount have been leaked through the breach.

The kind of info leaked various by particular person. Legislation enforcement was contacted and the corporate employed a cybersecurity agency to handle the incident.

The corporate supplied victims two years of free identification monitoring companies. Victims have till November 11 to enroll in the companies.

The studio’s spokesperson didn’t reply to requests for remark about whether or not the knowledge was from distributors or workers.

The incident follows an announcement final month by kids’s tv large Nickelodeon — which is owned by Paramount — that it was investigating an alleged breach after hackers claimed to have stolen 500 GB of information.

Screenshots of the recordsdata allegedly taken included folders on a few of Nickelodeon’s biggest titles, together with Rugrats, Avatar: The Final Airbender, SpongeBob SquarePants, Danny Phantom, the Smurfs, Monster Excessive and extra.

Cyberattacks on movie and animation studios are widespread, with essentially the most distinguished being the 2014 assault towards Sony Photos involving hackers from North Korea. The hackers leaked troves of embarrassing worker emails, private details about executives, copies of movies, scripts and extra.