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Hackers Leak Episodes Of 'Game Of Thrones' After Massive HBO Hack


The FBI Is Investigating The Hack, Which Is Seven Times Bigger Than The 2014 Sony HackOn Monday, Entertainment Weekly reported that HBO had been hacked by actors who claimed to have obtained 1.5 terabytes of data from the company.

"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."
[Entertainment Weekly]

At first, the hackers released unaired episodes of "Ballers" and "Room 104" along with written materials describing an unreleased "Game Of Thrones" episode. Today, they leaked even more unaired episodes of HBO shows, a sign of the enormous scope of the attack. Here's what we know.


The FBI Is Investigating The Hack

It's still not known what exactly the hackers got access to, but the size of the data breach suggests that they got plenty of video.

To put in context the 1.5 terabytes — or 1,500 gigabytes — claim, in the Sony case, about 200 gigabytes of data was released online, a damaging deluge that brought the studio to its knees and led to the ouster of then co-chair Amy Pascal. "A traditional business-grade DSL link would take about two weeks at full blast to exfiltrate that much data," says Farsight Security CEO Paul Vixie, noting that a finished Blu-ray is about 30 gigabytes. "If not for video and sound, a corporation the size of HBO might fit [entirely] in a terabyte, including all the email and spreadsheets ever written or stored."...
Sources say HBO is working with the FBI and cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which led the forensic investigation on the Sony hack (ironically, Mandiant also was targeted by hackers around the same time as the HBO breach).

The Hackers Have Released Episodes Of Five HBO Shows, Including 'Game Of Thrones'

This morning, the hackers made the episodes available for anyone to download on a newly launched site called WinterLeak — which also has a section called 'Coming soon ...!"

The uploaded data includes unreleased episode 3 and 4 of popular TV series Games of Thrones Season 7 and its script, episode 1, 2 and 3 of Ballers's season 3, Episode 1 and 2 of upcoming comedy series Barry, unreleased Episode 2 and 3 of Room 104 TV series, episode 2 of Season 2 of TV series Insecure.

There are four other files in which three are labeled as HBO Is Falling – Part 01, HBO Is Falling – Part 02, Download HBO Is Falling Part 03, and Viviane Passwords.


The hackers very clearly want attention for their misdeeds — on Saturday night, they sent an email to several reporters announcing "the greatest leak of cyber space era."

The hacker's e-mail read as follows:

"Hi to all mankind. The greatest leak of cyber space era is happening. What’s its name? Oh I forget to tell. Its HBO and Game of Thrones……!!!!!! You are lucky to be the first pioneers to witness and download the leak. Enjoy it & spread the words. Whoever spreads well, we will have an interview with him. . . HBO is falling."

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