Hackers this week released an e-mail from HBO in which the company expressed willingness to pay them US$250,000 as part of a negotiation over data swiped from HBO’s servers.
The July 27 e-mail was sent by John Beyler, an HBO executive who thanked the hackers for “making us aware” of previously unknown security vulnerabilities.
The executive asked for a one-week delay and said HBO was willing to make a “good faith” payment of US$250,000, calling it a “bug bounty” reward for information technology professionals rather than a ransom.
HBO declined to comment.
A person close to the investigation confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, but said it was an attempt to buy time and assess the situation.
The same hackers have subsequently released two dumps of HBO material and demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom.
Regardless of whether HBO intended to follow through with its US$250,000 offer, the e-mail on Friday raised questions among security professionals about the importance of the data and whether HBO’s reaction might encourage future attacks.
“It’s interesting that they’re spinning it as a bug bounty program,” said Pablo Garcia, CEO of Aliso Viejo, California-based FFRI North America. “They’re being extorted. If it was a bug bounty, it’d be on the up and up.”
Beyler’s e-mail to the hackers said the company was working “very hard” to review all the material they provided, and was also trying to figure out a way to make a large transaction in bitcoin, the hackers’ preferred payment method.
“You have the advantage of having surprised us,” Beyler wrote. “In the spirit of professional cooperation, we are asking you to extend your deadline for one week.”
The first HBO hack became publicly known on July 31.
Beyler’s e-mail, sent several days earlier, might have been an attempt to make the problem go away without too much bad publicity for HBO, said Sanjay Goel, a professor at the University at Albany and chairman of its information technology management department.
“Hackers are not in this game for US$250,000; this probably took them a lot of time and effort,” Goel said. “That’s a very, very small amount in these kinds of negotiations.”
On Monday, hackers using the name “Mr Smith” posted online a fresh cache of stolen HBO files and demanded that the network pay a multimillion-dollar ransom to prevent further releases.
The leaks included scripts from Game of Thrones episodes and a month’s worth of e-mail from the account of HBO’s vice president for film programming.
There were also internal documents, including a report of legal claims against the network and job offer letters to top executives.
HBO has said that it is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity firms to investigate the attack, which is the latest to hit a Hollywood business.
In April, a hacker claimed to have released episodes of Netflix Inc’s Orange is the New Black ahead of their official launch date.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”