HACKERS have posted a fresh cache of stolen HBO files online, including what appear to be draft scripts from five Game Of Thrones episodes, demanding a multi million-dollar ransom to halt the release of entire television series and other sensitive files.
HBO, which had previously acknowledged the theft of “proprietary information”, said it was continuing to investigate and was working with police and cyber security experts.
In a swaggering five-minute video from “Mr Smith” to HBO chief executive Richard Plepler included in the dump, the hackers used white text scrolling on a black background to deliver an ultimatum – pay up within three days or see the group, which claims to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of HBO shows and confidential corporate data, upload entire series and sensitive proprietary files.
Specifically, the hackers demanded “our six-month salary in bitcoin” and claimed they earned $12-15 million a year (£9m-£11.5m) from blackmailing organisations whose networks they have penetrated.
They said they would only deal directly with “Richard” and send only one “letter” detailing how to pay.
The dump itself was just 3.4 gigabytes – mostly technical data that appears to provide a topography of HBO’s network and to list network-administrator passwords.
It includes what appear to be draft scripts from five Game Of Thrones episodes, including one upcoming episode, and a month’s worth of email apparently from the account of Leslie Cohen, HBO’s vice-president for film programming.
The network reiterated on Monday that it did not believe its email system as a whole had been compromised.
The video text was written in often flawed but fluent English, peppered with misspellings and pop-culture references.
The hackers claimed it took them about six months to breach HBO’s network.
Their biggest threat appears to be dumping videos of future shows online with their logo “HBO Is Falling” superimposed.
Many of the more-than 50 internal documents in the dump were labelled “confidential”, including a spreadsheet of legal claims against the network, job offer letters to several top executives, slides discussing future technology plans and a list of 37,977 emails called “Richard’s Contact list”, an apparent reference to Plepler.
One screenshot labelled “Highly Confidential” by the hackers listed folders such as “Penguin Random House”, “Licensing & Retail”, “Legal”, “International” and “Budgets”.
Another document appears to contain the confidential cast list for Game Of Thrones, detailing personal mobile phone numbers and email addresses for actors such as Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey and Emilia Clarke.
So far, however, the HBO leaks have been limited, falling well short of the chaos inflicted on Sony in 2014.
In that attack, hackers possibly associated with North Korea unearthed thousands of embarrassing emails and released personal information, including salaries and social security numbers, of nearly 50,000 current and former Sony employees.
The video letter claimed the hackers spend a half million dollars a year to purchase “zero-day” exploits that let them break into networks through holes not yet know to Microsoft and other software companies.
It claims HBO is the hackers’ 17th target and that only three of their past targets refused to pay.
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