Disney didn’t have three months to breathe after its highly publicized proxy battle before another fire needed putting out: A hacktivist group claims to have leaked mountains of internal communications data plucked from Disney’s Slack channels. The leak includes discussions about marketing, interviewing candidates, studio technology, co-workers’ dog pics, and more, reports The Wall Street Journal. NullBulge, a group committed to fighting against AI-generated art, has leaked screenshots of the hacked data in the past few weeks with project plans, Disneyland Paris revenue, and booking data among the leaks.
The hactivists said they got their hands on the data using a Trojan-horse method: A Disney manager of software development downloaded a video-game add-on in which the group had apparently hidden malicious software and then gained access to Disney’s Slack; it accessed Disney’s internal software a second time using an undisclosed method. NullBulge is known to hide malware in video-game add-ons and cheap AI image generators. In an online message, the group said it targeted Disney “due to how it handles artist contracts, its approach to AI, and it’s [sic] pretty blatant disregard for the consumer,†according to The Wall Street Journal. If NullBulge truly wanted to be messy, it would compile a dossier on all the gossipy DMs about Disney’s latest drama. Like, what did employees really think of Nelson Peltz? Do they know Pixar is giving flop era for some critics? And what are they gonna do about all those Marvel shows?