Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; August 22, 2017)

Last week, Mumbai Police’s Cyber Crime Cell impressed with its efficient crackdown on those behind the infamous leak of the fourth episode of Game Of Thrones (GoT) season 7. Since the storage and processing rights of the series on Star India’s app, Hotstar, lay with the digital firm, Prime Focus, the leak was easier to have pulled off, say senior officials at the channel.

As hackers threaten to leak the finalé of the show’s latest season on social media, an insider from Star India tells mid-day that they have a plan in place to avoid a repeat. “The processed file of episodes will be handed over by Star to its outsourced agency. The process will involve only four senior officials. The four people, two from each company, will be assigned the responsibility of handling an episode. The quartet will be changed again for the next episode. That way, a single person will not have a freehand in handling the episode. The content head will delegate the job,” says the source.

Over the last few weeks, the channel has been dealing with threats and rumours suggesting a loss of 1.5 TB data of scripts, discussions and raw footage of GoT. However, the authenticity of the online hackers’ claims cannot be confirmed. “The Cyber Cell is actively involved. Officials from the newly set up anti-piracy cell are treating this as their first major assignment,” says the source. Though Star India refused to comment, a well-placed source in the channel said, “There won’t be another leak from our end.” When contacted, Brijesh Singh, Special IG Cyber, Maharashtra Police said, “ It’s too early to comment.”