'Game of Thrones' Season 7 Spoilers, Plot News: Episode 4 Leaked This Weekend
"Game of Thrones" season 7 episode 4 titled "The Spoils of War" has been leaked online a couple of days before its official television debut.
The said episode leak, which comes in a low-quality format with a "for internal viewing only" watermark, follows a security breach targeted towards HBO, in which hackers were able to steal 1.5 terabytes of data from the network's U.S. servers.
However, sources have informed The Verge, that the leak is not related to the security breach. Instead, it comes from one of HBO's distribution partners, Star India, whose watermark is also evident in the leaked video.
"This confirms the compromise of episode 4 of 'Game of Thrones' season 7, earlier this afternoon," a spokesperson for Star India reportedly told Gadgets 360. "We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partner's end to swiftly determine the cause. This is a grave issue and we are taking appropriate legal remedial action," the representative added.
Various news outlets have confirmed that the released episode, which was illegally distributed via Reddit threads and Google Drive, is indeed genuine. Most streaming links have been taken down, but there had been several people who made copies of their own and then uploaded the episode again in various platforms.
"Game of Thrones" season 7 episode 4 is said to be a rather intense installment. It reportedly features an action-packed battle wherein plenty of the soldiers from the other side of the war ends up in ashes, and their commander almost got incinerated himself as well.
This was not the first time that episodes of the popular fantasy series have been leaked online, however. It can be recalled that back in 2015, a few episodes from the show's fifth season, which were sent to the press for early reviews, were leaked online. Since then, HBO has stopped giving the media early access to "Game of Thrones" episodes.
