HBO Hackers Demand Millions

July hasn’t been a good month for HBO. They looked all set to rake in another round of handsome profits following the release of the seventh season of the chart-topping TV show, Game of Thrones. Subscriptions for HBO Now had been renewed and people were eagerly awaiting every episode. But the ‘Mr. Smith Group’, a group of hackers, had another plan in mind.

The hackers infiltrated HBO’s servers and obtained confidential information worth 1.5 terabytes. These included unaired episodes of different TV shows, scripts, personal emails between actors, directors, producers etc. and HBO’s social media accounts.

The hacking was first made public when the Game of Thrones’ fourth episode was leaked all over the internet a few days before it was scheduled to be aired. The leak was followed by a multimillion dollar ransom demand from the hackers. But it is believed that it was Star India, and not the hacking group, who were responsible for the leak. This is because their logo which was visible on the leaked version.

But HBO refused to play ball. Perhaps HBO underestimated the extent of the breach or they want to appear weak by giving in to the hackers’ demands. The refusal might be because, Game of Thrones is already the most pirated show, even before the hack, but HBO still manages to make a good profit.

Things took a turn for the worse when the penultimate episode of the season was also leaked and Mr. Smith group claimed responsibility for the incident. Moreover, the group leaked episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, scripts, email conversations and most recently, dumped the passwords to several of their social media accounts online.

All this was followed by a threat to also leak the season finale of GoT before it is scheduled to be aired. It remains to be seen if HBO will cave in and pay the ransom or continue to hold on. Either way, in the words of Melisandre, ‘The internet is dark and full of hackers’. I might be paraphrasing here though.