Hacker leaked the news twice and demanded a ransom of $6 million. HBO faces huge crisis

At least for now, the content leaked by HBO TV is still relatively limited, and the impact is far less than that of the Sony hacker leak case in 2014.

In the HBO TV hacking case, the hackers (or hackers) hidden in the dark did not release the content they had stolen in advance on Sunday, as they said.

In an email suspected to be from a hacker received by The Hollywood Reporter last Sunday, the anonymous sender said that the previously promised early release of the film source would be postponed because "new buyers have emerged." The email also said: "Some of HBO's biggest competitors are negotiating with us to buy leaked content. The deal is about to be completed and poor HBO will no longer be able to rise."

Considering that it is unlikely that HBO's competitors in the United States will purchase the stolen information, this email is either a bluff or the buyer is from a wider range of "HBO's competitors."

It is unclear whether the sender of the email is connected to the hacker, but the account for the email is the same as the account sent by previous emails that said the content would be posted on Sunday.

Whether HBO TV is out of danger remains to be seen. In the last month, the cable network fell into crisis and became a victim of content leaks. The hackers claim they have obtained more than 1.5TB of intranet information. On July 29, more than 2500 HBO TV staff received an email from the company, and HBO TV admitted for the first time that the system was at risk. The next day, the company sent an email again reminding employees to pay attention to their email addresses.

On the same day, hackers began to contact various media outlets, claiming that they had completed "the largest information theft project in the Internet era." At about the same time, a script for "Game of Thrones" began circulating on the Internet, along with unaired episodes of "The Players" and "Room 104".

Unaired episodes of "The Players" and "Room 104" were also leaked.

As the matter continued to simmer, HBO CEO Richard Plaple told employees on August 2:"We don't think our entire system is in danger, but the judicial review process is now underway."

The following day, The Hollywood Reporter received an email from a suspected hacker saying it would publish the leaked content on Sunday. "HBO (especially poor Richard) is a liar," the email read."We have complete control of their email system, everything is a matter of money. We have been negotiating with HBO officials for weeks, but they broke their promise and tried to trick us, so we had no choice. Wait until Sunday, HBO is dying."

In a video sent to Richard Plaple, the hacker signed "Mr. Smith" used text on a black background and said that if he did not want the content to be leaked, he would "pay us six months 'salary in Bitcoin", which is estimated to be at least $6 million.

The seventh season of "Game of Thrones"

came last weekend, and HBO's "Game of Thrones" episodes this week have been circulated on some BT websites. However, an internal source from HBO TV said that the leak had nothing to do with hackers and was caused by an Indian television station called StarIndia, the distributor of "Game of Thrones" in India. In a statement, StarIndia said it was responsible for the leak and would "immediately eliminate the impact."

Throughout the incident, HBO TV has cleared leaked content on the Internet as quickly as possible. Links related to the "Game of Thrones" episode aired on Sunday night have now been removed. If you search for relevant content through Google, the page will read: "I'm sorry, but you cannot open this page due to the content violating the terms of service." Prior to this, HBO TV has also said it will "work with police and Internet experts to investigate these thieves who steal intellectual property."

It remains to be seen how much information hackers now have. According to reports, the TV series "Curbing Enthusiasm" is also within the scope of leaks. At the same time, the authenticity of the hacker's claim that he "has 1.5TB of data in his hands" is still uncertain. Although the leak of "Game of Thrones", HBO TV's trump card, is indeed a problem, these stolen documents and emails are still temporarily protected. At least for now, the content leaked by HBO TV is still relatively limited, and the impact is far less than that of the Sony hacker leak case in 2014.

Currently, HBO TV has no comment on the matter.

Editor: Xiongwei