The film's plot was inspired by the Stuxnet's case, a computer worm designed to attack industrial programmable logic controllers. Discovered in 2010, Stuxnet ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear facilities and its origin couldn't be officially identified. It was later determined to have been carried out by Unit 8200, the Israeli military's version of the NSA.
Composer Harry Gregson-Williams wrote that most of the music featured in Hacker (2015) is not his, even though he's given on-screen credit. He expressed his disappointment on Facebook right after the premiere, when he had discovered for the first time that director Michael Mann only used a small part of his original score. His since-deleted post said: "I would like it to be known for what it's worth that the 'score' for Blackhat maybe credited to me, but contains almost none of my compositions. I attended the premiere of the movie at the end of last week and discovered, to my horror, music that shocked and surprised me... quasi emotional (synth) string pieces that I'd never heard in my life before. I knew of at least one other composer, a good one at that(!), that had put in months of work on this movie just as I had, but this appeared to me to be in addition to both our contributions. I can say nothing for certain except that I was not the author of most of what is now in the movie." Most of Gregson-Williams' work was replaced with compositions by Atticus Ross and Leopold Ross. Additionally, five themes originally composed by Ryan Amon for the score of Elysium (2013) were re-used in Hacker (2015).
Hackers served as on-set consultants during filming.
Michael Mann donated HK$300,000 (US$38,500) to The Community Chest of Hong Kong in the name of Hang Seng Bank, to thank the bank for allowing him to film for 5 evenings in the bank's lobby area.
Adjusted for inflation Hacker (2015) is Michael Mann's lowest-grossing theatrical feature in the US.