À travers de nombreux entretiens, dont plusieurs sources anonymes de la NSA, Zero Days révèle l'existence de l'Opération Olympic Games, dont le virus "Stuxnet" est une composante, et témoigne de la montée en importance des cyberattaques dans les conflits inter-étatiques au vingt-et-unième siècle.
Benjamin Engel, un pirate informatique de Berlin, est assis dans une salle d'interrogatoire. L’officier en charge dit à Hanne Lindberg, chef de la division Cyber d’Europol, que Benjamin avait demandé à subir l’interrogatoire. Benjamin affirme avoir des informations sur FRI3NDS, un groupe de pirate informatique notoire de quatre membres connecté à la cyber-mafia russe, et sur MRX, une figure célèbre sur le Darknet. II réclame l'attention de Hanne avant de dévoiler ses informations.
Kenji Koiso (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a young student at Kuonji High School with a gift in mathematics and a part-time moderator in the massive computer-simulated virtual reality world OZ along with his friend Takashi Sakuma (Takahiro Yokokawa).
The true story follows Edward Snowden, an American computer professional who leaked classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) to The Guardian in June 2013.
The film opens with the creation of the 1984 commercial for Apple Computer, which introduced the first Macintosh. Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) is speaking with director Ridley Scott (J. G. Hertzler), trying to convey his idea that "We're creating a completely new consciousness." Scott, however, is more concerned at the moment with the technical aspects of the commercial.
In 1980s Germany at the height of the Cold War, 19-year-old Karl Koch (August Diehl) finds the world around him threatening and chaotic. Inspired by the fictitious character Hagbard Celine (from Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! Trilogy), he starts investigating the backgrounds of political and economic power and discovers signs that make him believe in a worldwide conspiracy.
During a surprise drill of a nuclear attack, many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing missileers prove unwilling to turn a required key to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince John McKittrick (Dabney Coleman) and other systems engineers at NORAD that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human intervention. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer, WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), programmed to continuously run military simulations and learn over time.
In 1969, students Martin Brice and Cosmo are sneakers who hack into computer networks using university equipment, to redistribute conservative funds to various liberal causes. The police burst in and arrest Cosmo while Martin is out getting pizza, and Martin becomes a fugitive.
The FBI responds to a brief computer outage at their Cyber-Security Division by tracing down top computer hackers, finding several of them have been killed. Taking others into protective custody, the FBI asks New York City Police Department detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) to bring in Matthew "Matt" Farrell (Justin Long), one of the targeted hackers. McClane finally arrives just in time to prevent Farrell from being killed by assassins working for Mai Linh (Maggie Q), a mysterious cyber-terrorist who works for her boss and love interest, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant).
In a college computer lab run by Professor Robert Kaufman, as he goes to check on his two students; Eric Staufer and Bill McLemore, a new creature - the Phantom Virus - comes out of a new game based on the Mystery Gang's past adventures and tries to scare away the game's creator Eric. The next day, Mystery, Inc. themselves come to the college and learn from their friend Eric, that the virus had assumed a lifelike form thanks to an experimental laser which is able to transmit objects into cyberspace, and is now rampant across the campus. The gang goes on the hunt for the Phantom Virus, where the virus chases Scooby and Shaggy through the college. Unfortunately, the whole gang, including the virus, somehow gets pulled into the game after 'someone' activates the laser. Left with no other choice, the gang fight their way through the ten levels of mystery and adventures to complete the game in order to escape it, with the goal of finding a box of Scooby Snax to complete each level. Their efforts are impeded on each level by the Phantom Virus. The first level is on the moon, the second is in the Roman Colosseum, the third is in the dinosaur age, the fourth is under the sea, the fifth is in a (shrunken) backyard, the sixth is ancient Japan, the seventh is in ancient Egypt, the eighth is in medieval times, and the ninth is in the North Pole.
In 1989, Kevin Flynn, software engineer and the CEO of ENCOM International, disappears. Twenty years later, his son Sam, now ENCOM's primary shareholder, takes little interest in the company beyond playing an annual prank on its board of directors.
Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a software engineer, formerly employed by the computer corporation ENCOM, who now runs an arcade bar called Flynn's. He wrote several video games, but another ENCOM engineer, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), stole them and passed them off as his own, earning himself a series of promotions until reaching Senior Executive VP. Having left the company, Flynn attempts to obtain evidence of Dillinger's actions by hacking the ENCOM mainframe, but is repeatedly stopped by the Master Control Program (MCP), an artificial intelligence written by Dillinger. However, since its inception the MCP has become power-hungry, illegally appropriating business and even government programs and absorbing them to increase its own capacities; it informs Dillinger of its plans to subjugate The Pentagon and the Kremlin, and expresses interest in China with its request for Chinese-translation programs, blackmailing Dillinger into compliance with records of his theft of the games.
In a restaurant in Los Angeles, a man discusses the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon before walking off, with numerous SWAT officers pointing guns at him and a dishevelled man following him out. They walk to a nearby building with gunmen and hostages strapped with bombs and ball-bearings. One of the gunmen is killed by a sniper; when the hostage is forcibly taken away, the explosives detonate via a proximity trigger, killing her and others. The film then flashes back four days.
John Connor has been living off the grid in Los Angeles in the years following the death of his mother, Sarah, from leukemia. Although Judgment Day did not occur on August 29, 1997, as expected, John still believes that a war between humans and the machines will occur. Unable to locate John in the past, Skynet sends a new model of the Terminator called the T-X back to July 24, 2004 to kill other members of the Human Resistance. The T-X is more advanced than previous Terminators, and has an endoskeleton with built-in weaponry, a liquid metal exterior similar to the T-1000, and the ability to reprogram other machines. Unlike previous Terminators, its standard appearance is female. The Resistance sends a reprogrammed Terminator (T-850 - Model 101) back in time to protect the T-X's targets including John and his future wife, Kate Brewster.
In 1988, 11-year-old Dade "Zero Cool" Murphy is arrested and charged with crashing 1,507 computer systems in a single day and causing a single-day 7-point drop in the New York Stock Exchange. His family is fined $45,000 for the events and he is banned from using computers or touch-tone telephones until he is 18 years old. Seven years later, Dade (Jonny Lee Miller), is now living with his divorced mother in New York City. On Dade's 18th birthday, he receives a computer and uses social engineering to hack into a local television station's computer network, changing the current TV program to an episode of The Outer Limits. However, Dade's intrusion is countered by another hacker (handle "Acid Burn") on the same network, and they briefly converse, with Dade identifying himself by a new alias: "Crash Override".