The “Mr. Smith group” of hackers told News that they have
access to “many HBO Servers” and that HBO should be “waiting” for the leak of
episode six, which will be aired on Sunday, and episode seven of its greatest
hit quickly before of the show’s finish at the end of the week.
The hackers also provided News a record of the usernames and
passwords for all of HBO’s social media accounts, including its initial @HBO
Twitter account. Last week the OurMine hacking organization took command of
HBO’s social media, including the Game of Thrones Twitter account.
The TV network has declined to pay a multimillion-dollar
ransom order to the hackers, who jeopardized the network’s systems in July and
have since leaked a list of ambiguous documents, emails and unaired shows,
including Game of Thrones and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Game of Thrones is now one of the countless pirated TV shows
of all time. Experts have claimed that due to the pervasiveness of TV show
piracy, threats of publishing unaired episodes were not enough to force
payment.
Alex Heid, chief research director at risk administration
firm SecurityScorecard said: “Pirated content shows up on Pirate Bay within 24
hours of airing. Any movie on HBO, any TV Show, the moment it’s published, on
the first day, you see it on pirated internet streams.”
Analysts recognize that HBO was supported by the fact that
the hackers only published a few shows and that an entire season wasn’t
published in one go, forcing spectators who required to watch it as quickly as
possible to subscribe to the TV network.
More likely damaging to HBO could be the announcement of
further sensitive information. Previous dumps listing actors’ private details,
scripts, shooting plans and a chain of emails. Up to now, the damage induced to
HBO by the leaks has blanched in contrast to the chaos created by the hacks on
Sony Pictures in 2014.
