Internal Disney Communications Leaked Online After Hack

Data from Disney’s internal Slack workplace collaboration system have been leaked online, including discussions about ad campaigns, studio technology and interview candidates, according to files viewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

An anonymous hacking group that calls itself Nullbulge said in a blog post that it published data from thousands of Slack channels at the entertainment company, including computer code and details about unreleased projects. Slack is widely used within large companies for group communications about strategic initiatives.

A hacking group has published data from Disney’s internal Slack communications. (iStock / iStock)

The group’s claims about the scope of documents taken and how it obtained them couldn’t immediately be verified. Material viewed by the Journal includes conversations about maintaining Disney’s corporate website, software development, assessments of candidates for employment, programs for emerging leaders within ESPN and photos of employees’ dogs, with data stretching back to at least 2019.

“Disney is investigating this matter,” a spokesman said.

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The entertainment giant’s businesses span movies, streaming services Disney+ and Hulu, theme parks, cable TV and sports giant ESPN. It is home to popular franchises including Marvel and Star Wars. 

A sign near an entranceway to Walt Disney World on in Orlando, Florida. Disney says it is investigating claims that its internal Slack messages were hacked and shared online. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images / Getty Images)

In recent weeks, Nullbulge posted screenshots of documents online that it claimed to have obtained from the company’s Slack channels. Nullbulge said they were excerpts of project descriptions and plans, as well as visit, 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.” 

Those comments hit on ideological rifts emerging in the entertainment industry as advancements in artificial intelligence accelerate. Some artists and activists fear creative work has been scraped from the internet without compensation by large technology companies that use it to power new chatbots and other tools that generate text, image and video responses to user queries. Several tech companies have claimed that scraping the public internet is fair use of work posted there.  

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