Game of Thrones season 7: Leak fears prompt HBO to dictate two-factor authentication for emails

HBO's epic fantasy period drams Game of Thrones has attracted fan frenzy like no other show in recent times. As the makers prepare for the release of its seventh season, leaks surrounding its plot have started to surface, but HBO and the show runners are not taking any chances this time.

Not only has the number of people receiving scripts for the season been drastically cut down, stars of the show have also been asked to adopt two-factor authentication for their mails so hackers cannot get in their inboxes and steal the scripts. Scripts this time are being sent digitally only and no on-set notes are allowed to be taken off the sets.

"They won't send it to us unless our emails have a two-step verification," British actor Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei on the show, told the Express. "You might be given rehearsal notes on set, but you have to sign for and return them before you leave. If you don't, people will chase you until you give them back!" she added.

For the first time, an entire season will be based on an original script different from what George R R Martin's books have so far depicted. This has set HBO and the show producers into taking extra precautions to protect the plot secrecy.

Many sub-Reddits have claimed they have exact details of the plot just like last year where most of the leaks were found to match the actual show's plot. A few episodes had even leaked online on torrent sites hours before their actual telecast on HBO.

The unavoidable obsessive fan interest has also led HBO to refrain from making the show available to the press before release. In an interview recently, Nikolaj Coster-Waudau, who plays Jaime Lannister on the show, said almost every major plot point of season 7 has been spoiled online somewhere or the other.

"It's all out there by the way... if you can find it... but there's 10,000 other spoilers out there, they're not real. It just gets lost in the shuffle," he said.