Target breach optioned as Sony feature film

The Target breach, and in particular the role of respected security blogger Brian Krebs in breaking the story, has been optioned as a feature film by Sony. The studio has bought the rights to the New York Times article, “Reporting From the Web’s Underbelly,” which told Krebs’ story in the wake of his exclusive revelations about the data breach at Target.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that the studio envisions the story as a “cyber thriller” set in the “high stakes world” of cybercrime.
Mashable reports that the studio has recruited Richard Wenk, writer of its recent version of The Equalizer, and action sequel The Expendables 2, to write the script.
Krebs’ blog, Krebs on Security, broke the story of the Target breach late last year, revealing that a large number of American debit and credit card details had been leaked from the retailer. The story had been leaked to Krebs, a former reporter at the Washington post, via officials at American credit card issuers.
In February this year, Nicole Perlroth’s profile article for the New York Times offered a portrait of Krebs, describing incidents such as Russian cybercriminals attempting to frame him with heroin purchased from the Silk Road “online drug market” (reported by We Live Security here), and describing how Krebs landed a string of exclusive stories, including several key revelations about the Target breach.

Perlroth described Krebs as, “A former reporter at The Washington Post who taught himself to read Russian while jogging on his treadmill and who blogs with a 12-gauge shotgun by his side.”