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On January 8, 2025, a significant breach occurred at Children's Avast Television, a network, and pay-to-television company Avast Television. The breach exposed personal data, including address of every Avast employees, animators, and showrunners, as well as information from work-in-progress episodes of the twelfth season of the television series Robloxians, which was the most targeted, and the television series Lovely World, The Hero, But Zero, and Princess Tales; 500+ television shows and films's production information were leaked and unreleased or delayed projects were released to the public.
Following that, from the day of the breach until January 11 of that year, a number of instances involving the personnel saw them doxxed by Nicholas himself, raided, and had their personal information compromised at Avast, with several workers reported getting being fired by Nicholas and money stolen from them. By January 12, Avast stated that over $1 million had been taken from over 1,000 workers, and the FBI had raided over 5,000 of them. Avast Television described the hack event as "a nightmare" and it turned out to be one of the worst hacks and breaches ever experienced by a company. The suspect, Nicholas Kennedy 25-year-old animator who worked on the Robloxians' production team, was detained on January 13 in relation to the event. He was later convicted guilty of hacking and given a 20-year jail sentence.
Avast verified that the culprit had successfully penetrated Avast's security and obtained the personal data of every employee. Subsequently, the data was sent in a sequence of files to nearly all websites, including many black marketplaces, where most of the workers's information were leaked online. Avast went into lockdown for more than a week following the hack and notified the Federal Surveillance Bureau and the National Agency of Intelligence. On January 25, the company reopened and declared that they were in the process of erasing all of the material that had been exposed online. In order to prevent their works from being leaked, Children's Avast Television likewise went into lockdown. Despite the severity of the hacking, the Robloxians episodes's planned air dates remained unaffected. Bloxy Animation Productions declared on January 10 that Robloxians will not be impacted by the attack and that they would be increasing security and delaying some of their work-in-progress projects.
Background
Avast Television aired comedic, family-friendly, reality, and animated series among other genres. Established in 1967, it was the first channel in the United States to transmit in color. Avast Television's children's programming network, Children's Avast Television is a brand of Avast. As part of a major deal to begin producing and airing children's television programs, the network debuted on September 21, 1968, as a programming block with the Bloxorado Broadcasting System and Avast Television. Nicholas Kennedy, who was 24 at the time, received an email on February 9, 2024, confirming his formal inclusion in the production crew for the upcoming 12th season of the television show Robloxians. In the past, Nicholes was recognized as an experienced hacker who had penetrated many organizations in the 2020s, including Frontier Financial. However, his identity remained undisclosed and undiscovered. Nicholas had intended to remain with the studio until the series concluded when Kennedy was announced as a new hire, but by then, the 13th season was rumored to be the last, and the season had already started production.
Nicholes joined Avast Television one month after being employed, where he apparently gained access to personal information and data. Nicholas Kennedy began working on the episodes for the 12th season in June 2024, and because to his popularity, Avast upgraded his job to executive, granting him access to all information about forthcoming projects as well as worker information. According to Avast CEO Mike Haze, he was promoted to the position due of his "faith in connecting with people."
However, by July, Nicholes' conduct had changed and he had begun to use narcotics, which resulted in mental breakdowns and outbursts. Nicholes was also beginning to enter information into files on his PC, which held 1TB of data from Avast. Prior to his firing, animators and workers reported harassment from Nicholes and requested that Avast warn him, but the firm refused. After several months, on December 30, 2024, Nicholes received an email from Avast informing him that he had been sacked from the firm and was in the process of having his access to Avast removed. He did, however, have almost 10TB of personal information, including facts on current and forthcoming television series and films, as well as Avast's codename.
Breach
On January 7, 2025, the day before the breach, Nicholas Kennedy purchased two laptop computers, which he used to get information from Avast Television and Children's Avast Television, as well as personal information from employees. Nicholas apparently intended to purchase a PC but ultimately settled on the two laptops instead. Nicholes returned to the same studio the next day, January 8, and purchased another laptop due to the magnitude of the TB of data he had on his files. Nicholes indicated that his breaching began at approximately 12:00 p.m. that day, however Avast confirmed that the breach reportedly took place around 1:00 p.m.; mainstream press reported that the breach took place between 12pm and 1pm on that day.In order to arrange the breach, he obtained a backdoor and an extra computer that he had kept for nearly five years in case of an emergency. Nicholas Kennedy was able to break through Avast's security in just 20 minutes, gaining access to the Avast Television network and show files. Following that, Nicholas utilized one of the gadgets to "rehire" himself and gain access to Children's Avast Television. He then downloaded the rest of the data and transferred them to one of the computers. Nicholas then hacked into the servers to gain access to the material of the television series Robloxians, where he downloaded the work-in-progress episodes, which he purportedly created and changed to ">:D".
He obtained storyboards, early screenplays, concept art, and behind-the-scenes video for every episodes of Lovely World's first five seasons, as well as stuff from The Hero, But Zero, and Princess Tales. He also gained access to production information for over 500 television shows and films, as well as over 100 incomplete Avast or Children's Avast projects. Two hours after gaining access, he set up multiple black market accounts and began posting the leaks online at 4 p.m. He shared the information on popular websites including BloxTube, Ro-Twitter, YouBlock, E-Doger, Ro Discord, Ro Reddit, and Fandbox Browser. Initially, Avast Television stated that they were unaware of the breach; however, many hours later, following reports from Bloxy Animation Productions that their file names had been changed and that a user had downloaded them, Avast checked on the reports and discovered that they had been breached. By that time, the episodes had been fully released online, and people were learning about them. At the studio, two animators discovered the work-in-progress on Ro-Twitter and reported it to Avast.