Internet leak
An internet leak is the unauthorized release of information over the internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such as books or albums. For example, a musical album is leaked if it has been made available to the public on the Internet before its official release date.
As released in 1994 only a low quality version of their MP3 encoding software (l3enc), a hacker named SoloH gathered the source code from the unprotected servers of the University of Erlangen and developed a higher quality version, which started the MP3 revolution on the internet.[1][2][3][4]
Fraunhofer IIS
In 2003, Axel Gembe, a German , who had infiltrated Valve's internal network months earlier, exploited a security hole in Microsoft's Outlook to get the complete source of the video game Half-Life 2. The source code was leaked online a week later, a playable version of Half-Life 2 was compiled from the source code, revealing how unfinished it was. The leaks damaged morale at Valve and slowed development.[6] In March 2004, Gembe contacted Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, and identified himself, saying he was a fan and had not acted maliciously. Newell worked with the FBI to invite Gembe to a fake job interview, planning to have him arrested in the USA; however, police arrested him in Germany.[7][8][9] The complete source was soon available in various file sharing networks.
hacker
Also in 2003, source code to Inc. voting machines was leaked. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University published a critique of Diebold's products, based on an analysis of the software. They found, for example, that it would be easy to program a counterfeit voting card to work with the machines and then use it to cast multiple votes inside the voting booth.
Diebold Election Systems
In 2003 a Chinese hacker acquired the source code for and sold it to someone in California who then used it to create a bootleg version of the game, powered by his own servers. Despite warnings from NCSoft that pirating an online game was considered illegal, he continued doing so for a few years, until the Federal Bureau of Investigation finally raided his home in 2007, seized the servers and permanently disabled the website that fronted his bootleg version of Lineage II.[10][11]
Lineage II
In 2004, a large portion of 's source code and a small percentage (reportedly about 15%) of Windows 2000's were leaked online.[14] The Windows 2000 source code leak was analysed by a writer for (now defunct) website Kuro5hin who noted that while the code was generally well written, it allegedly contained about "a dozen" instances of profanity and the milder euphemism "crap". The writer also noted that there were a lot of code hacks, with the "uglier" ones mostly being for compatibility with older programs and some hardware.[15] It was feared that because of the leak, the number of security exploits would increase due to wider scrutiny of the source code. It was later discovered that the source of the leak originated from Mainsoft.[16][17]
Windows NT 4.0
Also in 2004, partial (800 MB) proprietary source code that drives ' networking hardware was made available in the internet. The site posted two files of source code written in the C programming language, which apparently enables some next-generation IPv6 functionality. News of the latest source code leak appeared on a Russian security site.[18]
Cisco Systems
In 2006, hackers stole source code (about 1 GiB) for Symantec's pcAnywhere from the company's network. While confirmed in January 2012, it is still unclear how the hackers accessed the network.[19]
Anonymous
In late 2007, the source code of and a Norton Anti-Spyware version were available via BitTorrent.
Norton Ghost 12
In December 2007 and January 8, a user published the sources of five Idera SQL products via BitTorrent.
Pirate Bay
In January 2011 the "stolen source code" of was published on the Pirate Bay.
Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2008
On May 20, 2011, 's source code was published by someone on a GitHub repository.[20] After being online for four days, CCP Games issued a DMCA take-down request which was followed by GitHub.[21]
EVE Online
In December 2011, the source code of the operating system's kernel was leaked via BitTorrent.[23]
Solaris 11
In August 2014 's X-Ray Engine source code (and its successor) became available on GitHub under a non-open-source license.[24][25]
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky
On December 29, 2015, the 3.1 source code leaked to the web, confirmed by the rights holder Hyperion Entertainment.[26][27]
AmigaOS
In February 2018, the bootloader for Apple operating systems' source code was leaked onto GitHub by an Apple engineer. The code was from 2016, and by the time it was leaked, iBoot had been restructured, making it obsolete.[31]
iBoot
Some time during March 2018, Nintendo suffered a when a hacker obtained an alleged 2 TB of confidential material containing source codes to game consoles, games, and internal documentation.[33] Starting in 2018, the contents of this breach slowly made their way onto the Internet, starting with iQue Player ROMs and various Pokémon games.[34] Later in 2020, the leaks gained more attention and grew in size, culminating into the release of Wii and Nintendo 64 source code, and the so-called "Gigaleak", a massive release containing multiple N64 games' source code and SNES Prototypes.[35] After July 2021, no more releases have occurred.
significant leak
On August 7, 2020, 20 GB of of Intel, including source code (in SystemVerilog and otherwise) of their system on chips leaked (with preserving git structure). That included Intel ME, Intel Microcode and software simulators of their hardware. Their various BIOS source code was also leaked. The SpaceX cameras firmware that Intel worked on also leaked. The data is being distributed through a torrent.[36]
Intellectual property
On September 23, 2020, SP1 and Windows Server 2003 complete source code depots were leaked. The archives included all the source code from the time it was used at Microsoft, including documentation and build tools. The leak was first dismissed as illegitimate, but it was soon clear that it was legitimate, the source code contained Windows XP specific code and resources, later one user managed to compile the OS and pack it into an ISO image.[37]
Windows XP
On January 4, 2021, North America source code was leaked online due to misconfiguration of a company Git server, which was left exposed online with a default username and password of admin/admin. Software engineer maia arson crimew learned of the leak and analyzed the data, which they shared with ZDNet. The repository reportedly contained Nissan NA mobile apps, parts of the Nissan ASIST diagnostics tool, Nissan's internal core mobile library, Dealer Business Systems and Dealer Portal, client acquisition and retention tools, market research tools and data, vehicle logistics portal, vehicle connected services, and various other back ends and internal tools, they reported.[38]
Nissan
On February 10, 2021, and Witcher 3 developer CD Projekt Red (CDPR) announced hackers had targeted the company and attempted to hold it to ransom. On 6 June 2021, someone in possession of the data had leaked all of Cyberpunk 2077 code (96.02 GB of data in 7z archive) online publicly, while previously it was only[39] available in encrypted form.[40][41][42]
Cyberpunk 2077
On October 6, 2021, streaming site had its source code along with earnings reports of top streamers leaked by hackers on 4chan,[43] citing the streaming site's negative community and desire for competition and disruption of the online video streaming space. The breach was confirmed by Twitch on Twitter.[44] The leak was distributed freely via a torrent file and was 135.17 GB in size. As a precaution, all the stream keys have been reset by Twitch.[45]
Twitch
On February 25, 2022, ransomware group LAPSUS$ hacked and reportedly obtained 1 terabyte[46] of proprietary information. The group subsequently released a ~20 GB archive containing the source code for NVIDIA GPU drivers among other things.[47] Details for a Nintendo Switch successor were also found among the data.[48] It was also reported recently that the group also infiltrated Portuguese media conglomerate Impresa, the Ministry of Health in Brazil and Brazilian telecommunications company Claro.[49]
NVIDIA
[50]
In late 1998, a number of confidential documents later dubbed the Halloween documents were leaked to Eric S. Raymond, an activist in the open-source software movement, who published and commented on them online. The documents revealed that internally Microsoft viewed free and open-source software such as Linux as technologically competitive and a major threat for Microsoft's dominance in the market, and they discussed strategies to combat them. The discovery caused a public controversy. The documents were also used as evidence in several court cases.
Microsoft
Nintendo
Super Smash Bros.
Several high-profile books have been leaked on the Internet before their official release date, including , Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and an early draft of the first twelve chapters of Midnight Sun. The leak of the latter prompted the author Stephenie Meyer to suspend work on the novel.
If I Did It
2010 has been filled with lot of leaks for later seasons on scenes, leaked full song to the theme song, leaked early released episodes before they got aired on Discovery Family, unfinished episodes, 2018–present there was leaks for the generation 5 as My Little Pony: A New Generation was the start.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
On January 31, 2014, the original uncensored version of the episode "201" was leaked, when it was illegally pulled from the South Park Studios servers and was posted online in its entirety without any approval by Comedy Central. The episode was heavily censored by the network when it aired in 2010 against the will of series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and was never formally released uncensored to the public. The episode was the second in a two parter and was censored after the airing of the first part as a result of death threats from Islamic extremists who were angry of the episode's storyline satirizing censorship of depictions of Muhammad.[59]
South Park
In 2015 the unaired episode "Boston" was leaked online. The episode was set to air during the fifth season as a response to a controversial publicity stunt for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters that occurred in the titular city, but Adult Swim was forced to pull it to avoid further controversy.[60]
Aqua Teen Hunger Force
On March 13, 2016, the full list of qualifying teams and first round match-ups for the leaked on Twitter in the midst of a television special being broadcast by CBS to officially unveil them. The leak exacerbated criticism of a new, two-hour format for the selection broadcast, which was criticized for revealing the full tournament bracket at a slower pace than in previous years.[61][62]
2016 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
On April 20, 2021, supplier Quanta Computer was hit by a ransomware attack. The attackers began posting documents and schematics of MacBook computer designs as recent as March 2021. The attackers threatened to release everything they had obtained by May 1, 2021, unless a ransom had been paid, however nothing further came out of the breach.[63]
Apple
On March 6, 2023, the unreleased film Scooby-Doo! and Krypto, Too!, a crossover involving and Krypto the Superdog was allegedly canceled,[64] and was leaked online.[65] It was alleged to be cancelled as tax write-off for parent company Warner Bros. Discovery's cost savings effort.[64] On July 26, 2023, it was confirmed to not be cancelled,[66] and a trailer was released on July 27, 2023 with a release date of September 26, 2023.[67][68]
Scooby-Doo
On May 6, 2023, a Twitter user leaked the trailer for the film. Universal Pictures and Blumhouse worked to have videos of the trailer taken down.[69]
Five Nights at Freddy’s
On January 3, 2024, a Twitter user leaked the screenshots of 3 new minions and the plot for weeks before the trailer launched and was claimed that it would appear at Super Bowl LVIII but screenshots were taken down by Universal & Illumination.[70][71] Only 2 descriptions of the plot leak was confirmed true, while the third was false for Edith, Agnes and Margo were going to be teenagers. The trailer was released in January 28, 2024.
Despicable Me 4
Distributed Denial of Secrets
GlobaLeaks
News leak
a 2006 California case in which police photographs of a fatal automobile accident were leaked online