HBO Hackers Are Demanding Millions In Bitcoin

As you might have heard, HBO was recently hacked and with the hack, quite a ton of data was stolen in the process. To prove that the hack was successful, the hackers then released quite a bit of material, one of which was a Game of Thrones script. However that’s not all the hackers have managed to get their hands on.

In a report from The Hollywood Reporter, it seems that the hackers have since released a fresh treasure trove of data, except this time the leak contains emails from a HBO executive. The hackers have also sent a message to HBO CEO Richard Plepler which reads, “We successfully breached into your huge network. … HBO was one of our difficult targets to deal with but we succeeded (it took about 6 months).”

The hackers have also since demanded that HBO pay them a ransom to prevent additional content from being released. The amount the hackers are asking for is 6 months worth of salary in bitcoin, which they have implied is worth around $6 million. HBO had previously confirmed that they have experienced a “cyber incident” and are working with the authorities and cybersecurity firms.

However given that the data has been stolen, we’re not sure what HBO can do to prevent the leak save paying the ransom and giving into the hacker’s demands. This is a pretty huge deal as there are some who fear that the HBO hack could be seven times larger than that of Sony, which was a pretty big deal back then.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: bitcoin, Hack, hbo, Legal, Security