With AAP.

Winter may have taken a long time to finally arrive in Westeros (think six entire seasons), but there’s one thing Game of Thrones related that fans won’t be waiting for any longer: the next episode in the latest season.

Links to the fourth episode of the show’s seventh season, called The Spoils of War, were posted on a discussion board on Reddit.

Shortly after the link appeared, however, it was removed, with a message stating the post “violated GoogleDrive’s [terms of service]”.

Earlier this week, the TV network giant experienced a massive hack of their systems, in which upcoming episodes and scripts from many of their original series were shared online.

The latest hack, however, is not believed to be related, and was instead stolen from one of HBO's international partners, Star India.

A spokesperson for the network, which receives episodes from HBO in advance of their air dates, confirmed the leak.

"This confirms the compromise of episode 4 of Game of Thrones Season 7, earlier this afternoon," they said.

"We take this breach very seriously and have immediately initiated forensic investigations at our and the technology partner’s end to swiftly determine the cause.

"This is a grave issue and we are taking appropriate legal remedial action."

And that's exactly the reason why you shouldn't go searching for the episode online - there could be major legal ramifications for illegally downloading this, or any, episode.

The show is believed to be the most-pirated of all time, with an 1.77 million Australians downloading the show's most recent episode.

LISTEN: Everything that happened on Season 7 Episode 1 of Game of Thrones, in case you're very, very behind.

If any show can survive a leak like this, it's Game of Thrones: in 2015, the first four episodes of season five landed on piracy networks, nearly a full day before the season premiere.

And last year, one episode leaked ahead of its premiere date when it was accidentally made available on HBO Nordic.

Luckily for Jon Snow and friends, the show's cult following means most fans are happy to wait until the official air date and time, if only to escape the wrath of their friends if they let slip some spoilers.

NOBODY TWEET GAME OF THRONES SPOILERS OR ILL WILL NOT HESITATE TO MUTE YOU ALL pic.twitter.com/NBds8nQnlI

— ellie ???? (@L0KISDIANAS) August 4, 2017

And with promises from those that have seen it that it's the "best episode ever", we're willing Sunday to hurry up and arrive.

Stay strong, guys.

When Game of Thrones episode has leaked on Friday but you're staying strong and waiting for Sunday pic.twitter.com/iFpwwyveUk

— Wolf meets Dragon???? (@Khaleesi_Ren) August 4, 2017

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