HBO vs. blackmailing hackers: the company offers $250,000 in Bitcoin as ransom

Two weeks ago, the world of entertainment has experienced a big shock after it became known that some hackers managed to steal 1.5 TB of corporate data from HBO – the producer of such shows as Baller, Room 104 and Game of Thrones. “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……!!!!!!” – emailed this criminal group to some media outlets. They threaten to release all this valuable data with commercial secrets if the company doesn’t give them a considerable sum of bitcoins equal to $6 million and released some parts of this sensitive information to prove they indeed stole it.

Since then, the company was trying to find out more information on these miscreants and took a step that might seem desperate. The attackers released the screenshot (The Guardian reports it has a copy) of an email by the senior vice president of the corporation which tells that the company is ready to give $250,000 in Bitcoin as a bounty payment and requests for extension of deadline the hackers previously set. Apparently, the criminals want to demonstrate that the company is giving up hopes if it started to negotiate.

The HBO’s representatives, however, now claim that this step was a part of a plan to reveal more info and traces of these racketeers and nobody actually intended to send this sum.

These hackers’ strategy largely resembles the one of WannaCry virus creators: jeopardize the information, ask for ransom in cryptocurrency, await money. Looks like these attacks are going to multiply in the future. Sadly, the hackers’ wide use of cryptocurrency as ransom money will undoubtedly provoke a new wave of criticism of cryptocurrency technologies, thus indirectly making all cryptocurrency enthusiasts victims of attacks too.