HBO is hurting, and the hackers know it. It all began with a massive attack that enabled the theft of 1.5 terabytes of confidential data. Scripts were soon released, and the fourth episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones appeared. Two days ago, HBO Spain mistakenly aired the episode scheduled for this Sunday, and in the last few hours, a new attack partially took control of Twitter profiles. As if that weren't enough, details about Westworld's second season filming also leaked. Can anyone close the tap...?
The Perfect Storm
It's highly likely that HBO's top executives have been popping a lot of pills (of all kinds) in recent weeks. The company is being battered by the equivalent of a perfect storm, and the worst part is that there are still thirteen days left in August. The cybersecurity chaos that led to the theft of 1.5 terabytes of data, threats, ransom demands ($6.5 million in bitcoins) and a $250,000 offer ruined what would have been a real party animated by Game of Thrones, whose seventh season is destroying ratings. The hardest blow came with the leak of the fourth episode ("The Spoils of War") two days before its premiere, apparently extracted from the Star India network. Four people were arrested, and everything seemed to indicate that HBO would get a breather. However...
…HBO España and HBO Nordic screwed up, and the sixth episode slipped through their hands. The content spread much faster than HBO could retract it, and once it appeared on the BitTorrent network, the race ended with millions of "viewers" watching ahead of time. Other HBO shows, including Ballers (where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson works), Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David, and the dramedy Insecure, also suffered leaks. And now... two more developments: First, the hackers responsible for the original attack published data related to the filming of Westworld's second season and the so-called "diaries" from Game of Thrones Season 7. HBO basically said "no comment", giving us an idea of their legitimacy.
The second development is that a new attack temporarily took control of the profiles that HBO and Game of Thrones have on Twitter. The group responsible identified itself as OurMine and invited HBO to "get in touch with them" to improve its security. Who knows what they'll ask for, if the attacks will repeat in the coming days, or even worse, if they manage to ruin the season finale of Game of Thrones. There's blood in the water.
