Rock band’s hidden hacking-themed website gets hacked

On Friday, Pal Kovacs Long-awaited new album From the rock and metal giants bring me the horizon When he realized Strange Sounds At the end of the last track on the record.
I like solving mysteries and deciphering codes. Kovacs It made me wonder: Does this sound contain a hidden message?
His intuition led him to discover a hidden hacking-themed website that had actually been hacked at some point.
Kovacs opened the song in the audio editing app Audacity, and sure enough, there was a spectrogram (which is basically a visual representation of the audio itself) that was actually a scannable QR code. An excited Kovacs said, Shared the discovery To Bring Me the Horizon Subreddit.
By QR code Hidden Websitesis protected by a passcode, which turns out to be numbers (93934521) written on the album’s cover art, and resides in the head of one of the characters known as M8, who speaks on several tracks and also appears in the hidden site in a guide-like role.
The website is essentially an “alternate reality game,” or ARG. Nine Inch Nails I’ve done it before As a way to further engage fans with the band’s music and legend.
In this particular case, the game consists of a website where the band uploaded unreleased tracks, a “code” protected folder, etc., which leads to even more password protected files, even more puzzles, and even more hidden Easter eggs, some of which are still unravelled and locked by unknown codes.
Kovacs’ discovery is a testament to thousands of bring me the horizon Fans tried to uncover all the secrets hidden on the site. A few days later, Fans are still going at itAs the site’s creators add new challenges and puzzles, fans Dedicated Discord Server There are about 3,000 participants and a shared Google Doc that is about 5,500 words long at the time of writing.
Perhaps predictably, on the first day that fans discovered the site, someone hacked it in an attempt to gain an advantage in the game, leading the developers to temporarily shut it down and post a warning urging fans not to hack. Actual Hacking on a hacking-themed website.

“It appears that users have been hacking into M8 servers and decrypting hidden secrets,” reads a message from M8 in the album’s guide, which multiple fans reported seeing in chats with TechCrunch. “It is my duty to inform you that this behavior is egregious and counterproductive. The whole purpose of this program is to allow everyone to unravel mysteries at an exciting pace and experience the thrill of discovery. By circumventing the system and sharing secrets prematurely, you are ruining the fun for everyone!”
It’s unclear what exactly the developers meant by hacking into “servers” or who was responsible. The band’s record label, Sony Music Entertainment, did not respond to a request for comment.
“The email address was found after solving a riddle on the site. We found it legitimately, but when we sent an email to the email address as the site instructed, we received a warning message saying that it had been hacked and that we could be blacklisted if we tried again. We believe this is an old error from the first day the hackers were extracting information from the site,” Discord server owner xDarkMagicianGirl told TechCrunch.
xDarkMagician shared a copy of the email some people received after the hacking attempt.
“So, a friendly warning: your recent unauthorized access to our website did not go unnoticed. We admire your enthusiasm, but it is time to deal with the consequences of your actions. If you continue hacking into our systems you will be permanently blocked from accessing any part of our company,” the email read.
“Play fair and enjoy the journey together. After all, a little patience goes a long way to a really enjoyable experience for everyone, so stop being a troll and play fair!”