By Catalin Cimpanu From Bleeping Computer

Hackers are holding Disney for ransom, threatening to release a high-quality version of the “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” movie on torrents unless they’re paid a huge sum of money in Bitcoin.

Disney CEO Bob Iger confirmed the ransom demand to ABC employees during a town hall meeting held in New York on Monday.

While Iger didn’t reveal when Disney received the ransom demand, from who, or what movie, the Deadline discovered the ransom is for the fifth installment of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.

The movie, called “Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” stars Johnny Depp and is scheduled to be released later this month on May 26.

Netflix went through a similar incident
At the end of April, a hacker (or hacker group) going by the name of The Dark Overlord leaked the first ten episodes of the upcoming season 5 of Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” show. The hackers leaked the episodes after a failed ransom demand.

The Dark Overlord hinted he/they might be in possession of other movies, but Pirates Of The Caribbean 5 was not one of the teased titles.

The Dark Overlord have not claimed responsibility for the Disney ransom demand. The hacker(s) said they obtained the stolen movies after hacking a Hollywood sound processing studio.

Conspiracy theories and fake leaks
One theory is that the ransom demand is not real, and this is just a clever Disney marketing ploy to promote the movie.

Today, Softpedia claimed that at one point, someone uploaded a torrent with the name of “Pirates Of The Caribbean 2017” on The Pirate Bay, but the torrent was pulled minutes later.

As the publication did not verify the torrent, this was most likely a hoax, or crooks using this popular topic to spread malware.

For more on this story go to: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-holding-disney-for-ransom-over-pirates-of-the-caribbean-5-movie/