Hackers who breached HBO's computers have released another batch of stolen files and demanded millions of dollars in ransom from the network, threatening to publish unaired episodes of its series and various sensitive data.
The hackers claim that blackmailing various kinds of organizations whose networks they have breached brings them USD 12-15 million a year. Now they have demanded from HBO the equivalent of their "six months' pay in the virtual currency bitcoin." They added that they will communicate only with Plepler and will send "only one letter" describing the details of the ransom payment.
A total of 3.4 gigabytes of data was released - mainly technical specifications of HBO's computer network topology, a list of the network's administrators along with access passwords, a draft script for five episodes of the series "Game of Thrones," and one month's worth of emails from one of the board members.
About 50 of the published documents were marked as "confidential," including spreadsheets containing a list of lawsuits against the network, job offers for senior executive staff, and slides describing the network's technology plans.
The hackers said that breaching HBO's network took them six months, and warned that they will publish unaired episodes of various series with the added logo "HBO is falling." They also claim this is their 17th ransom demand and that only three victims refused to pay.
The network initially assessed that not all email inboxes were compromised.
source: forsal.pl
