{"id":119864,"date":"2017-08-12T15:28:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-12T13:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=119864"},"modified":"2017-08-12T15:29:39","modified_gmt":"2017-08-12T13:29:39","slug":"hbo-offers-to-pay-250000-ransom-to-game-of-thrones-leakers-in-bitcoin-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/entertainment\/119864-hbo-offers-to-pay-250000-ransom-to-game-of-thrones-leakers-in-bitcoin-reports","title":{"rendered":"HBO offers to pay $250,000 ransom to Game of Thrones leakers in Bitcoin \u2014 Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

HBO has reportedly offered to pay hackers who claim to have hacked its email system and obtained data from its network, reported\u00a0Variety<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

An HBO executive allegedly offered to pay the attackers a\u00a0$250,000 \u201cbug bounty\u201d as part of its programme for \u201cwhite hat IT professionals\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/strong>, the $250,000 would be a show of good faith for extending the group\u2019s initial deadline for a ransom payment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are willing to commit to making a bug bounty payment of $250,000 to you as soon as we can establish the necessary account and acquire Bitcoin,\u201d the HBO executive\u2019s email reportedly stated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not been able to put into place the necessary infrastructure to make a large payment in Bitcoin, although we are taking steps to do so as you suggested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variety cited sources as saying that the e-mail\u00a0was worded in this way to stall for time while it tries to assess the situation.<\/p>\n

The hackers who hit HBO\u2019s network also created the website Winter-leak.com, where they posted episode outlines and a script for Game of Thrones episodes<\/strong><\/a> that hadn\u2019t aired.<\/p>\n

They said the HBO\u00a0Internal Network, emails, technical platforms, and database were penetrated, with \u201cconfidential stuff that blaze your eyes\u201d obtained.<\/p>\n

The website has been offline since at least 8 August.<\/p>\n

The hack follows attacks on Netflix<\/a><\/strong>, where a hacker demanded a ransom in exchange for not leaking episodes of Orange is the New Black.<\/p>\n

When Netflix refused to pay, the hacker posted a torrent for the episodes to The Pirate Bay.<\/p>\n

The same group leaked eight episodes of ABC\u2019s Steve Harvey\u2019s Funderdome<\/a><\/strong> when ABC also refused to pay a ransom.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read:\u00a0More Game of Thrones spoilers leaked by hackers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HBO has reportedly offered to pay hackers who claim to have hacked its email system and obtained data from its network, reported\u00a0Variety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":102909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4555,8516,10751],"class_list":["post-119864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-hbo","tag-netflix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}