Several selected reporters received emails on Sunday night from hackers who had breached HBO’s servers, stealing more than 1.5TB of spoilers and information relating to “Game of Thrones” Season 7, Episode 4. They have already released some of the stolen information on a website over the weekend.
Hackers steal 1.5TB of data from HBO
As reported by Bleeping Computer, while they were at it, the hackers also stole episodes from other HBO shows, “Ballers,” “Insecure,” “Barry” and the new HBO series “Room 104.” The hackers didn’t release all the stolen information on their website but did include the script outline for episode 4 of the latest season of “Game of Thrones,” set to be aired by HBO next Sunday.
GoT ‘Leak news’ website launched
The hackers obviously have plans for future releases as they have dubbed their website – which has the appropriate URL, winter-leak.com – as being the “official website” for HBO leak news. In their emails, they ask reporters to “spread the words [SIC],” saying they will offer an interview to whoever shares the news the most and adding the ominous words “HBO is falling.” Entertainment Weekly first broke the news after HBO confirmed the leak to their reporter.
Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO of HBO, said he sent an email to employees to inform them of the “cyber incident,” telling them proprietary information had been stolen relating to their programming. While telling employees that obviously the hack “was unsettling and disturbing,” he went on to assure that senior leadership in the company, together with their technology team and law enforcement, is working to protect HBO’s interests.
No episode of ‘Game of Thrones’ was released
Unlike previous hackers – including that of hacker group TheDarkOverlord, who leaked 10 episodes of “Orange is the New Black” – no episodes of the “Game of Thrones” series were released on the website. They only released data from HBO’s secure network relating to the fourth episode of the current GoT season, together with a confidential outline containing spoilers for the episode.
TorrentFreak reports that there was a video included with the stash, which features images, leaders and a text outline for episode four. The outline and the videos also reportedly cover episode three of the latest GoT season.
Bleeping Computer noted in their report that according to a security researcher, Matt Suiche, HBO had published a job ad on LinkedIn ten days prior to the leak for a Senior Information Security Manager. Whether the company had found the right man or not is unknown.
