Earlier this week, news broke that HBO was hacked, and the script for the fourth episode in the latest Game of Thrones season leaked as a result. Episodes from other unreleased TV series also leaked, indicating that HBO may be dealing with a serious issue. A new report suggests the HBO hack is a lot bigger in scope than initially believed, with hackers having stolen as much as 1.5 terabytes of data.
A security company that HBO hired to scrub the search results for data coming from the hack told Google that the hackers stole “thousands of Home Box Office (HBO) internal company documents.”
According to Variety the hackers stole potentially sensitive information, including employee data, and even access to internal corporate email.
The hackers published a text document online that proves the have accessed information of a senior HBO executive, including sensitive data like online accounts, paid newspaper subscriptions, online banking, and personal health services.
The hackers have apparently suggested that they will release additional information soon. It’s unclear what they want in return, but it’s likely that the hackers were not just fishing for Game of Thrones episodes and other unreleased original HBO TV shows.
HBO confirmed that it’s working with law enforcement on the hack, without revealing the nature of the files that were stolen.
The company put out a general statement earlier this week that doesn’t go beyond the regular jargon you expect for such cyber attacks.
“HBO recently experienced a cyber incident, which resulted in the compromise of proprietary information,” the company said. “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.”
