05 August, 2017
A report in Variety reckons the hacker (or hackers) stole a whopping 1.5 terabytes of data, including "potentially sensitive internal documents, employee data, and a possible access to internal corporate email".
While their intentions are still unclear, the hackers have since leaked the personal information of a senior HBO executive along with data on dozens of online accounts, including paid newspaper subscriptions, online banking and personal health services, Variety reported. Video and sound files, meanwhile, take up much more space on their own, It's still unclear whether the hackers took mostly video content (episodes of Game of Thrones and other popular HBO series) or printed content (documents, emails, etc.); Federal Bureau of Investigation officials working with HBO have declined to elaborate.
Hackers claimed to have obtained 1.5 terabytes of data from the company.
According to a report from the Hollywood Reporter, there has been no ransom demand.
Honestly, who knows at this point.
On Sunday, an anonymous email was sent to many reporters announcing the hack: "Hi to all mankind".
An HBO spokesman declined to discuss details of the hack.
"A traditional business-grade DSL link would take about two weeks at full blast to exfiltrate that much data", Farsight Security CEO Paul Vixie said via THR.
'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'.
After acknowledging this week that "proprietary information" had been stolen in a cyberattack, HBO is now suggesting that the breach may not have been as bad as feared.
'As such, it's hard to believe that video and/or audio are not part of what was stolen.
"It will be interesting - and terrifying to HBO and their parent, Time Warner- to see what comes out", Arora added. "We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms". "Any intrusion of this nature is obviously disruptive, unsettling, and disturbing for all of us". The efforts across multiple departments have been nothing short of herculean. HBO certainly wouldn't want unreleased videos out to the world, but just as damaging could be internal company emails, or private customer data.
