HBO has been in the news a lot during the past month. Unfortunately, it has been for all the wrong reasons. The premium cable network had their online security breached by a hacker in July. This person was able to gain access to more than one terabyte of data. There was a wide variety of information that was compromised by the hacker. He gained access to sensitive corporate emails, scripts for “Game of Thrones,” marketing materials and unreleased episodes of upcoming HBO shows. The hacker has demanded payment. However, HBO has not given into the demands as of yet.
HBO has recently had a second hacking incident to contend with. The network’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were both hacked by pranksters who go by the name of OurMine. These hackers do not seem to be interested in stealing any sensitive data. Instead, they like to get publicity by taking over the social media accounts of very large companies. There are many hackers who like to get media attention. One of the best ways to do that is to go after targets that have a very high profile. Both of the hacking incidents and the information leaks that have followed have been a major source of embarrassment for HBO.
Google also had their social media accounts attacked by OurMine last year. This caused them to take steps to enhance all of their online security in an effort to prevent something like this from happening again. It seems likely that HBO will be doing the same thing in the coming days. HBO has said that it will no longer be commenting to the media if further info is leaked by the hacker. It was initially feared that the hacker would release unaired “Game of Thrones” episodes. However, the fact that no episodes of the popular fantasy show have been released have led many to believe that the hacker was unable to steal any.
The Facebook and Twitter accounts of HBO were only under the control of the hackers for roughly one hour before HBO was able to regain control of them. Experts in the field of online security have said that movie and TV companies will continue to be the top targets of hackers until they prove that they can defend themselves from cyber attacks. The hacker who stole all of the data from HBO has not said if he is finished releasing information.
Dil Bole Oberoi
