Entertainment

'Game of Thrones' Season 7, Episode 4 Officially Leaked Online, So Beware Of Spoilers

by Anna Menta
YouTube

Bad news for Game of Thrones fans (or good news, depending on your sense of morality): Full episodes are officially being leaked, so spoilers are officially coming. Just a few days after news broke that HBO had been hacked, Sunday night's upcoming Game of Thrones episode has reportedly leaked online. However, according to HBO, the Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4 leak is not part of the original HBO hack.

According to a report from Mashable, Game of Thrones Season 7, Episode 4, titled "The Spoils of War," has shown up online, two days before the episode is meant to air on Sunday. Mashable discovered the episode on r/freefolk, an unmoderated Game of Thrones subreddit.

An HBO spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable,

This confirms the compromise of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon. 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 leaked file was originally posted on Reddit via Google Drive, but has since been taken down for violating GoogleDrive's TOS. However, a working link can still currently be found in the comments section. The user who posted the link wrote it was a "gift from Pakistan."

HBO has notoriously kept an extremely tight lock on Game of Thrones. It's one of the few shows left to care so deeply about spoilers and leaks — for example, no screeners were available to any members of the press for Season 7. Earlier this week, news broke that hackers had acquired 1.5 terabytes of data from HBO. Full episodes of Ballers and Room 104 had been released, along with "written material" containing spoilers for Season 7 Episode 4 of Game of Thrones. But it was unclear whether full episodes of HBO's prized gem had been stolen.

HBO's hack is just one of many in a growing trend of holding popular TV shows and films for ransom. Earlier this year, the entire fifth season of Orange is the New Black was released online two months before the premiere date because Netflix refused to pay hackers the ransom.

So if you really don't want to get spoiled for Game of Thrones, I stay away from the dark corners of the internet this weekend. But hopefully you're doing that anyways.