The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a group that is critical of AI-generated art has obtained a large amount of data from The Walt Disney Company through their Slack channels.
What’s Happening:
- Data from Disney Slack channels, a widely used program for group communication – commonly used by workplaces of all sizes, including major corporations like the Walt Disney Company – has leaked online.
- The leaked information includes discussions about ad campaigns, studio technology, and even interview candidates according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.
- An anonymous hacking group, calling itself Nullbulge, posted in a blog that they had published data from thousands of Slack channels at Disney, some of which included computer code and details about unreleased projects.
- Reports indicate that material also included conversations about Disney’s corporate website, software development, and programs for emerging leaders at ESPN. Even photos of employee’s dogs surfaced in the leak, with the data stretching back to 2019.
- Also, Nullbulge said they were excerpts of project descriptions, plans, and booking and revenue data from Disneyland Paris.
- Nullbulge bills itself as a hacktivist group that advocates for artist rights and chooses its targets based on a set of social, economic or political values. A spokesperson for the group said via an online message that it targeted Disney “due to how it handles artist contracts, its approach to AI, and it’s [sic] pretty blatant disregard for the consumer.”
- The spokesperson also said that the group released the data because they believed that making demands of Disney would be ineffective, saying “If we said ‘Hello Disney, we have all your Slack data’ they would instantly lock down and try to take us out. In a duel, you better fire first.”
- A security researcher named Eric Parker has been following Nullbulge, explaining that the group began claiming back in May that they had accessed Disney’s computer systems.
- However, Parker believes that this is not the work of a group, but rather a single person, saying “He’s not doing it for money…I think this is an attention seeking exercise.”
- According to the group, they claim to have accessed the information through a member of Disney Management in Software Development, whom they compromised twice through tactics commonly referred to as a Trojan Horse, hiding malicious software (in this case) in a video game add-on, and another instance through an undisclosed method.
- A spokesperson from Disney said that the company is currently investigating the matter.