Publishers of the newest Dragon Tattoo novel took some borderline paranoid precautions to guard the book from hackers

Dragon Tattoo hacking
(Image credit: Facebook.com/DragonTattoo)

Talk about life imitating art.

Swedish publisher Norstedts is set to publish The Girl in the Spider’s Web — the first Lisbeth Salander novel not written by author Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004 of a heart attack — on Thursday (the U.S. release is Sept. 1). But protecting the manuscript from hackers, who Norstedts expected would be especially drawn to a story about one of their own (Salander is a tech-savvy anti-heroine) led to some very cloak-and-dagger operations, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Sarah Eberspacher

Sarah Eberspacher is an associate editor at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked as a sports reporter at The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus and The Arizona Republic. She graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.