|
This article has been assessed not ready for publication.Please see the review comments on the collaboration page. When these things have been done, and the article is ready to be reviewed and fact-checked, Submit for review?Template:Assistant/submit/formHBO: Hackers leak Game of Thrones scripts, demands millions ransomSubmit for review by changing the |
| This article has been assessed not ready for publication.
Please see the review comments on the collaboration page. When these things have been done, and the article is ready to be reviewed and fact-checked, Submit for review?Template:Assistant/submit/formHBO: Hackers leak Game of Thrones scripts, demands millions ransomSubmit for review by changing the |
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
On Monday, a group of hackers identifying themselves as “Mr. Smith” posted a stolen HBO file containing scripts for five episodes of the popular television drama Game of Thrones online, dumping them to a publicly accessible link and demanding the network to pay millions of dollars in ransom to prevent the further release of other confidential files.
The data dump includes an upcoming unseen fifth episode of Ballers and Room 104 and HBO’s internal confidential documents consisting of one month of emails from film vice president Leslie Cohen, job offer letters to top executives, legal claims and slides of HBO’s future technology plans.
The video letter sent to HBO CEO Richard Plepler showed in white text and black background, and in one of the screenshots showed files labelled ‘Penguin Random House’, ‘Licensing’, ‘Retail’, ‘Legal’, ‘International’, ‘Budgets’ and a list of personal info of the Game of Thrones cast members.
The hackers claimed to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data and threatened to release further content if their demand was not complied with. They gave HBO three days for the payment to be made to them via the virtual currency Bitcoin.
The hackers said that they have ransomed other organisations with an amount worth twelve to fifteen million dollars, and it took them six months to breach the HBO network. They further claimed they have hacked seventeen organisations, including HBO, with only three companies having refused to pay.
The network was confident the whole HBO email system was not compromised, and has enlisted authority and cyber security experts to investigate on this matter.
Comments are closed.