The bad week continues for HBO. Last week, an unnamed hacker group stole top-secret files from the company behind the popular fantasy show Game of Thrones, initially posting only half a gigabyte of unreleased shows and scripts online.
Now, they seemed to have upped their game with a leak that includes the first five scripts from the new series of Game of Thrones, thousands of financial documents, emails and strategy guidelines along with, in true hacker fashion, a ransom note.
A video posted online by the hackers, who claim to earn $15 million per yer from extorting companies, included a demand for their “six month salary in bitcoin” within three days or the they will upload everything they claim to have stolen. The original letter to HBO CEO Richard Plepler is not dated therefore we’re unsure as to when the three day countdown began. HBO have remained quiet on the leak, claiming that they don’t believe their entire email system has been compromised.
With Game of Thrones being the main target, it is also assumed that leaked files also include unreleased episodes of Barry, Insecure, Ballers and Room. In total, the group claim to have a staggering 1.5 terabytes of data. Although true that the hacker’s release of these will be damaging to the company, the release of internal documents could cause more trouble.