Update: I made e-mail contact with the hackers earlier today. This really doesn’t seem to be the work of TheDarkOverlord at all. One of the hackers, who identified himself as “Mr. Smith” to me claims that they have “gathered most imporatnt files and films & scripts and so on.” (sic), and that they have ” GOT 7 Full episodes and mini series, lots of upcoming serries (full feature films + scripts).”
In addition to the episodes, they claim that they have also obtained a lot of internal proprietary and staff communications that they will leak “step by step…. ”
So I am still in the process of downloading everything they have already made available and will likely have more to report in due course. My challenge, of course, is that I don’t watch any of these series or shows, so I’m always at a bit of a loss. What I do understand, though, is that I’ve yet to get Mr. Smith or his colleagues to answer some straightforward questions as to why they have done this – what their goal or extortion demand is, etc. Hopefully, they’ll tell me.
Update2: Well, I may have erred in my impression that this was not the work of TheDarkOverlord. As more is revealed, there seems to be more details that do overlap.
Original post:
James Hibberd reports:
HBO has joined the ranks of Hollywood entertainment companies to suffer a major cyber attack.
EW has learned that upcoming episodes of a couple series and at least one alleged script or treatment have been put online by hackers who breached the company’s systems — with more threatened to be coming soon.
“HBO recently experienced a cyber incident, which resulted in the compromise of proprietary information,” the network confirmed in a statement. “We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms. Data protection is a top priority at HBO, and we take seriously our responsibility to protect the data we hold.”
Read more on EW.
I’ll tell you this: from what I’ve seen so far, this is not likely to be the work of TheDarkOverlord. The writing is all wrong for them, but if they see this post of mine and would be kind enough to get in touch to either confirm or deny, I’d appreciate it. Or maybe the HBO hackers will respond to an inquiry I sent them seeking additional details. We’ll see….
We need links! The fans want to see!
This site has a policy of not linking to data dumps, even though I know other sites are now beginning to link or reveal the location of the dumped files. How the hacker(s) obtained the material – which appears to be the real thing – and their claim that they have a lot more proprietary files are what I’m more interested in pursuing. Well, that, and their motivation. I’m always so curious as to why certain entities are targeted as victims.