Hackers could hold confidential information about Princes William and Harry including email addresses, phone numbers and other personal details
Intimate details of Princess Beatrice could be leaked on to the internet after an urgent investigation was launched over fears she had become a victim of North Korean hackers.
The 26-year-old royal, the first woman in line to the throne, was working at Sony Pictures in London when the company’s computer network was breached by cyber terrorists.
Now desperate security chiefs will be looking to see whether the attack has unwittingly compromised other members of the royal family who are in touch with the Princess.
Staff at Sony had their emails exchanges, medical files, salary details, passport details and other private information stolen.
As Beatrice is so close to her father, Prince Andrew, her cousins William and Harry, and other senior royals concerns are running high hackers also now have their confidential information including email addresses, phone numbers and other personal details mentioned in correspondence with the Princess.
It was Beatrice and her sister Princess Eugenie who introduced Harry to his last girlfriend Cressida Bonas and they remain good friends with her despite the couple’s split in May last year.
The hackers, who have taunted their victims threatening to expose the highly confidential information on line, also stole five unreleased movies including the new remake of the hit film Annie.
Other victims of the breach include Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone, Angelina Jolie and Cameron Diaz.
In total 47,000 staff have had their details accessed by the hackers.
Today it emerged the company saved thousands of company passwords in a folder entitled “passwords”.
The leaked information belong to past and current employees.
At the beginning of the year Princess Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, took up an internship at Sony Pictures Television at its London headquarters in Golden Square.
Writing in the Mirror, royal author Phil Dampier said: “If it emerges that Princess Beatrice’s information and emails have been hacked along with other Sony employees I expect there will be concern among her family and the royal household.
“When the royals have email accounts, Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts, as Beatrice does, they are in the same boat as the general public when it comes to being hacked.
“A few years ago Beatrice had her car stolen and the royals are not immune to cyber attacks either.
“She is a thoroughly modern royal but the more social media she uses and computers in firms she works for then she is clearly as likely to be hacked as anyone else.”
Although Beatrice has an HRH title she does not appear on the civil list and receive taxpayers’ money.
Sony was left crippled following the cyber attack last week by a group calling themselves “Guardians of Peace”.
They warned studio bosses they had obtained “secrets” and threatened to make them public.
The information they said they had included files labelled ‘Angelina Jolie passport’ and ‘Cameron Diaz: passport’.
Production schedules and passwords are also understood to have been accessed.
“We’ve already warned you, and this is just a beginning. We continue till our request be met,” said a message that appeared on the computer screens.
Staff were told it may take up to three weeks for the breach to be cleared.
Before Sony Pictures’ computers went down their screens displayed an image of a red skeleton with the phrase ‘Hacked By #GOP'.
Bosses at Sony feel the leak of films including Brad Pitt’s latest film Fury will have a devastating effect on their success and cost the company in terms of lost revenue.
Security experts believe North Korea, headed by dictator Kim Jong-un, was the the prime suspect behind the hack.
One of the films made by Sony called The Interview – in which two men are recruited by the CIA to assassinate the despot – has sparked anger in Pyongyang.
Here's the poster for my next movie #TheInterview. pic.twitter.com/TJZ4jGMqdc
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) June 11, 2014 North Korea has played down suggestions it was behind the attack. Sony has yet to officially name North Korea as the source of the cyber attack but sources at the Sony Picture Entertainment headquarters in Culver City, California say they believe a group known as DarkSeoul is to blame.
The company did not respond to calls from the Mirror.
A spokesman at Buckingham Palace today confirmed Beatrice works in the business sector but declined to comment further when asked if there was concern over the hack.
