

An anonymous hacker claims to have used computer magic to

peer through the extreme secrecy surrounding the ending of

the Harry Potter saga and posted online

unverified details from the soon-to-be released final book

in best-selling series.

The hacker, posting under the handle Gabriel, claims to

have gotten a copy of the seventh and final installment of

the blockbuster Harry Potter series that chronicles the

adventures of a child magician by hacking into Bloomsbury,

the series' London-based publisher.

Gabriel said he wanted to spoil the ending to Harry

Potter and the Deathly Hallows to protect people

from its "Neo Paganism" and was able to get into the

publisher's computer network by convincing an Bloomsbury

employee to open an email with malware attached.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book

useless and boring," Gabriel [wrote](http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Jun/0380.htm

l) (Alert: Possible Spoiler Link)."It's amazing

to see how much people inside the company have copies and

drafts of this book."

In advance of the novel's July 21 publishing date, fans

have been rabidly debating which characters the series'

author J.K. Rowling might kill off.

The hacker made the claim and posted some plot details Tuesday to

a security mailing list called Full Disclosure, which is

re-posted on insecure.org, a website run by a white hat

hacker known as [Fyodor](https://www.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/01/myspace_all

eged.html).

However, no portions of the novel were posted, casting

doubt on the veracity of the claim.

Kyle Good, a spokeswoman for the book's U.S. publisher

Scholastic, said she could not verify the plot details,

saying there is a lot of material on the internet claiming

to be from the book.

"Anyone can post anything on the internet and you can't

always believe what you read," Good said. "The only way to

know for sure is to read the book on July 21."

However, the claimed method of attack – known as spear

phishing – is completely believable, according to Rick

Wesson and Adam Waters, the top officers at the computer

security firm Support

Intelligence.

"This is being used against the State Department often,"

Wesson said. "This is how you steal any kind of

intellectual property."

"We have so lost fundamental trust [in the security of

networks] we can't tell if the story is true or not,"

Waters added. "Say it was a corporation's financial

numbers for next month – you could move a market with

that information."

Even if the hack happened and the plot details are proven,

the revelations are unlikely to affect the sales of the

book, given the series' intensely loyal fan base.

But Wesson and Waters say the story illustrates that

secrets – including copies of unreleased movies, policy

statements by politicians and Federal Reserve

announcements – are extremely vulnerable to targeted external

attacks from hackers who can find their way into a

corporate network as easily as sending an email to a

summer intern.