Indian police have arrested four people on suspicion of leaking an episode of Game of Thrones before it was aired on the sub-continent, in another sign of the security challenges facing major content companies.
The incident, unrelated to the more recent hack of GoT broadcaster HBO, involves the fourth episode of season seven of the wildly popular TV program.
The arrests came after a complaint to police from Prime Focus Technology, where three of the suspects currently work, according to the BBC.
The fourth person arrested is a former employee of the company.
The Mumbai-headquartered firm is responsible for storing and processing the series for local streaming site Hotstar.
The four have reportedly been cuffed on suspicion of “criminal breach of trust and computer-related offences” and will be detained until August 21.
It’s believed that they had access rights to GoT episodes, which would have made it pretty straightforward to get their hands on and then leak the content.
The episode in question was apparently leaked on August 4, days before it was due to air.
The arrests come as HBO continues to suffer from the fallout of a recent hack which the perpetrators claim landed them with 1.5TB of content and information.
They’ve already begun leaking some episodes of hit TV programs before their official broadcast dates in a bid to force the network to pay a ransom.
Most recently, unaired episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Insecure were posted online over the weekend.
It’s another sign of the difficulties facing content and media companies in keeping valuable IP under wraps until it’s due to be shared with the world.
The India leak in particular exposed the potential security challenges arising from third party networks around the world, although the firm at least appears to have a good idea about which insiders are responsible for the incident.