Target hack: The movie? Hollywood says yes

Does the computer breach at Target have the makings of a movie? Throw in a shotgun-toting security analyst, Russian hackers, drugs and a SWAT team and Hollywood appears to think so.

Sony has bought the rights to a New York Times article about Brian Krebs, the security blogger who was the first to expose December's security breach at Target, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The article, "Reporting From the Web's Underbelly," was written by Nicole Perlroth and details how Krebs' blog about cybercrime has prompted criminals to hack him repeatedly, send heroin and excrement to his home and falsely accuse him of murder.

Hence, the 12-gauge shotgun he keeps by his side while writing.

"A lot of what Brian does would scare the hell out of traditional newsroom editors," Russ Walker, Krebs's former editor at The Washington Post, said in the Times article. "I don't think he crossed the lines journalistically, but he was living a different type of experience."

The movie is expected to be a cyberthriller written by Richard Wenk, whose credits include "16 Blocks," "The Mechanic" and "The Expendables 2."

Krebs himself seems amused by the notion that his life and unglamorous work may soon be dramatized by Hollywood.

"Judging from accounts of the screenwriter's other movies, if this flick actually gets made someone vaguely resembling me probably will be kicking some badguy butt on the Silver Screen," he wrote Friday in a post on his security blog.

"I still have yet to work out the details with Sony, but beyond remuneration (and perhaps a fleeting Hitchcock-style cameo) I would be delighted if I could influence the selection of the leading man," he added.

"In the past week, I've been told I look like both Jim Carrey and Guy Pierce, but I'm not so sure. But if I had to pick one of my favorite actors, I'd love to see Edward Norton in the role."

As many as 40 million customers had their personal information compromised in the Target breach. Krebs found out about it through sources in the hacker underworld and was the first to contact Target about it.

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