Last week, hackers revealed that they obtained 1.5 terabytes of data in a major breach of HBO’s systems and released unaired episodes of Ballers, Room 104, and a Game of Thrones script outline. Now the hackers have released even more information and have also sent HBO a ransom note.
The latest batch of information from the hackers—which was sent to the Hollywood Reporter in an email—included a month’s worth of emails from a top HBO executive, marketing and media plans for Game of Thrones, and nine files “with such labels as ‘Confidential’ and ‘Script GOT7.’” The folder also had stills and an outline for this Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones, which is titled “Eastwatch.”
Included in the information sent to the Hollywood Reporter is a video message addressed to HBO CEO Richard Plepler calling for an undisclosed amount of money. According to the hackers, HBO took six months to hack and it is their “17th target.”
“Our demand is clear and Non-Negotiable: We want XXXX dollars to stop leaking your Data,” the letter stated, according to Wired, the amount not disclosed. “HBO spends 12 million for Market Research and 5 million for GOT7 advertisements. So consider us another budget for your advertisements!”
HBO insiders said last week that the breach of its systems was seven times larger than the Sony hack of 2014, but even though an HBO executive’s email was accessed and released, the company doesn’t believe that the hackers have breached its entire email system.
“HBO believed that further leaks might emerge from this cyber incident when we confirmed it last week,” HBO said to the Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “As we said, the forensic review is ongoing. While it has been reported that a number of emails have been made public, the review to date has not given us a reason to believe that our email system as a whole has been compromised.”
H/T Wired
