Mumbai: Star India’s ERP supplier Prime Focus Technologies has been forced to issue an apology following actions by its staff that led to the 4th episode of Game of Thrones season 7 being leaked online three days before its official launch date.
The breach has resulted as a huge embarrassment for PFT, which manages 1.5 million hours of content for some of the world’s biggest broadcasters and studios globally and has been engaged with Star India as one of its key technology partners since 2011. It manages data for both Star and its digital subsidiary Novi.
Earlier, PFT has voluntarily came forward and revealed that on 4 August, a link to view Episode 4 of Season 7 of Game of Thrones bearing a Star India watermark appeared online 72 hours before its authorised broadcast time due to what PFT says was “an outcome of an illegal breach of obligations” by its then current and former employees. It also launched a Police Complaint seeking investigation on its own staff who were suspected of possible involvement as a mark of support to Star India.
Based on the complaint from Star India and PFT Mumbai Police has swooped in on the Bangalore office of Prime Focus Technologies from where the leakage appeared to have occurred and carried out interrogation of the employees throughout the night on August 11, 2017 that resulted in arrest of four people associated with PFT.
Attempting to reassure its customers, PFT has issued a statement saying that once it was aware of the issue it immediately initiated forensic investigations to determine the cause.
“It is important to note that this was not a system hack,” the company stressed in a statement. “It was an illegal breach of obligations by the concerned persons despite of PFT’s continual internal emphasis on protocols of content security and ethical practices. We deeply regret and condemn this incident – and affirm our strong resolve to continue the fight against content related crimes in an effort to make the M&E industry’s content more secure. PFT has always been and remains committed to the highest standards in content security and integrity in managing its clients’ content.”
PFT concluded by assuring that that it was working closely with its client and co-operating with the police to take the investigation to its logical conclusion at the earliest and to prosecute the perpetrators of this crime.
