[2017-08-11] HBO willing to pay hackers $250k bitcoin ransom

[tyz]

HBO willing to pay hackers $250k bitcoin ransom

Following a massive cyberdata breach that featured the leaked script of “Game of Thrones” and private information of some of its cast, HBO is reportedly ready to settle.

A hacker or group called “Mr Smith” claimed responsibility for the attack and has initially demanded to be paid the equivalent of six months of their salary—claiming they earn between $12 million and $15 million from stealing intellectual property and blackmailing companies.

“As a show of good faith on our side, we are willing to commit to making a bug bounty payment of $250,000 to you as soon as we can establish the necessary account and acquire bitcoin,” the email read.

http://entertainment.inquirer.net/238299/hbo-willing-pay-hackers-250k-bitcoin-ransom-report

[1Referee]

This is straight bs. Why on earth would you (doesn't matter if you're an individual, or a multi million business) reward these pathethic beings for their illicit acts? This will further incentivize them to continue with what they are doing, because they know they get what they are looking for - money. Another thing is that when you end up paying, there is nothing that guarantees these hackers to literally remove everything they have afterwards. These people have no moral standards, and thus will have no problems spreading their information, or selling it to different parties. Accept your loss, and instead of rewarding a bunch of criminals, invest that money into proper security of the operating systems.

[Kemarit]

If ever this is true, then this will set a precedence. Hackers will not target big corporation and will extort money from them. This will now be a professional job now for hackers and not just a 'hobby' for now. HBO should not do this!!!. This is like paying a terrorist or kidnappers and this will not be good for the society in general. Perhaps they are thinking that they are losing more money if the hackers would released this show in the internet. So paying $250K is justified. But I'm against it because of the reasons above. What they should do is tracked the hackers, by cooperating with the government agencies so that they can caught we did this and prosecute him/the properly.

[eckmar]

This is straight bs. Why on earth would you (doesn't matter if you're an individual, or a multi million business) reward these pathethic beings for their illicit acts? This will further incentivize them to continue with what they are doing, because they know they get what they are looking for - money. Another thing is that when you end up paying, there is nothing that guarantees these hackers to literally remove everything they have afterwards. These people have no moral standards, and thus will have no problems spreading their information, or selling it to different parties. Accept your loss, and instead of rewarding a bunch of criminals, invest that money into proper security of the operating systems.

It's simple. I understand HBO. 250k $ is nothing to them and Game Of Thrones is currently the most popular show. Threy have proven that they really own the script and they leaked one episode. Also if hackers should decide to release ehat they got after payment, no company in future would ever pay them again.

[oli123123]

This is straight bs. Why on earth would you (doesn't matter if you're an individual, or a multi million business) reward these pathethic beings for their illicit acts? This will further incentivize them to continue with what they are doing, because they know they get what they are looking for - money. Another thing is that when you end up paying, there is nothing that guarantees these hackers to literally remove everything they have afterwards. These people have no moral standards, and thus will have no problems spreading their information, or selling it to different parties. Accept your loss, and instead of rewarding a bunch of criminals, invest that money into proper security of the operating systems.

It's simple. I understand HBO. 250k $ is nothing to them and Game Of Thrones is currently the most popular show. Threy have proven that they really own the script and they leaked one episode. Also if hackers should decide to release ehat they got after payment, no company in future would ever pay them again.

Exactly. But in my opinion that's something worth way more than $250k.

[1Referee]

It's simple. I understand HBO. 250k $ is nothing to them and Game Of Thrones is currently the most popular show. Threy have proven that they really own the script and they leaked one episode. Also if hackers should decide to release ehat they got after payment, no company in future would ever pay them again.

$250K not being anything significant to HBO doesn't justify them throwing that on the table to feed a bunch of criminals. The hackers by that time can simply change their part of the deal at any time to make HBO pay them more money, and then still, they might likely release the content anyway. Such criminals have no moral standards, and thus should never be incentivized to continue their illicit acts. In other words, companies should not be paying anything in the first place, and not decide to not pay criminals anymore after they haven't kept word.

[bbc.reporter]

It might be a trick. HBO maybe already has the FBI advicing them on what to do. This is just a 250k dollar bait. Do not forget the dilemma the Wannacry ransomware hackers had when they tried to move their coins. Everyone was closely watching their wallets until they had their coins locked by Shapeshift and Changelly.

If the hackers are serious about their safety and safety of their coins, they should demand Monero payments. See how HBO will back off because they know that 250k will be gone forever.

[Turner77]

Accordingly to some, HBO is playing a game with this offer.  Buying some time to assess the real damage.

http://deadline.com/2017/08/hbo-hack-game-of-thrones-payout-hollywood-attack-1202146862/

It's unlikely these "hackers" are more than script kiddies who got a little lucky or are bluffing.

[deadsilent]

This is straight bs. Why on earth would you (doesn't matter if you're an individual, or a multi million business) reward these pathethic beings for their illicit acts? This will further incentivize them to continue with what they are doing, because they know they get what they are looking for - money. Another thing is that when you end up paying, there is nothing that guarantees these hackers to literally remove everything they have afterwards. These people have no moral standards, and thus will have no problems spreading their information, or selling it to different parties. Accept your loss, and instead of rewarding a bunch of criminals, invest that money into proper security of the operating systems.

It's simple. I understand HBO. 250k $ is nothing to them and Game Of Thrones is currently the most popular show. Threy have proven that they really own the script and they leaked one episode. Also if hackers should decide to release ehat they got after payment, no company in future would ever pay them again.

Yes, it's easy for them to pay the hackers since they are the most watched series all over the world. But how about the reputation of bitcoin. This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. I've read also the hacked movie of Pirates of the Caribbean. This is very alarming since authories can't do anything to stop them. 150 countries being attacked by these hackers at the same time and no one get caught. And guess where to put their blame? Bitcoin

[eckmar]

This is straight bs. Why on earth would you (doesn't matter if you're an individual, or a multi million business) reward these pathethic beings for their illicit acts? This will further incentivize them to continue with what they are doing, because they know they get what they are looking for - money. Another thing is that when you end up paying, there is nothing that guarantees these hackers to literally remove everything they have afterwards. These people have no moral standards, and thus will have no problems spreading their information, or selling it to different parties. Accept your loss, and instead of rewarding a bunch of criminals, invest that money into proper security of the operating systems.

It's simple. I understand HBO. 250k $ is nothing to them and Game Of Thrones is currently the most popular show. Threy have proven that they really own the script and they leaked one episode. Also if hackers should decide to release ehat they got after payment, no company in future would ever pay them again.

Yes, it's easy for them to pay the hackers since they are the most watched series all over the world. But how about the reputation of bitcoin. This is a bad publicity for bitcoin. I've read also the hacked movie of Pirates of the Caribbean. This is very alarming since authories can't do anything to stop them. 150 countries being attacked by these hackers at the same time and no one get caught. And guess where to put their blame? Bitcoin

Yeah well you know who blames Bitcoin ? Pleple that don't even understand what Bitcoin is. I guess it's fine to say "HBO paid 250k cash to hackers" but it's not fine with btc because oh god btc is only used by criminals and it's pretty bad. I hate when people say smth like that. It just tells me a lot about their mindset.

[Benezim]

0.25M$ is way below the initial 6M$ the "hackers" asked for. All I see is that HBO is not taking them seriously (e.g. thinking that the hackers are bluffing) and/or just buying time.

[CryptoBry]

If ever this is true, then this will set a precedence. Hackers will not target big corporation and will extort money from them. This will now be a professional job now for hackers and not just a 'hobby' for now. HBO should not do this!!!. This is like paying a terrorist or kidnappers and this will not be good for the society in general. Perhaps they are thinking that they are losing more money if the hackers would released this show in the internet. So paying $250K is justified. But I'm against it because of the reasons above. What they should do is tracked the hackers, by cooperating with the government agencies so that they can caught we did this and prosecute him/the properly.

I think there will be similar news and stories in the coming months because this hacking and extortion industry will boom and sadly these criminal activities can be associated with Bitcoin because criminals preferred to use this digital currency. And I am wondering: Is there anything that we can do about this proliferation of criminal activities and their use of Bitcoin?

[Nameless27]

If ever this is true, then this will set a precedence. Hackers will not target big corporation and will extort money from them. This will now be a professional job now for hackers and not just a 'hobby' for now. HBO should not do this!!!. This is like paying a terrorist or kidnappers and this will not be good for the society in general. Perhaps they are thinking that they are losing more money if the hackers would released this show in the internet. So paying $250K is justified. But I'm against it because of the reasons above. What they should do is tracked the hackers, by cooperating with the government agencies so that they can caught we did this and prosecute him/the properly.

I think there will be similar news and stories in the coming months because this hacking and extortion industry will boom and sadly these criminal activities can be associated with Bitcoin because criminals preferred to use this digital currency. And I am wondering: Is there anything that we can do about this proliferation of criminal activities and their use of Bitcoin?

This days rebel adaptation to technology seems unstoppable. There is big profit for it for companies used there computers a lot. The only thing this would end is when the internet stop from working that is merely impossible. Or they can back to old age using typewriters or hand pen to documents. If this unlawful doings is not stop it would affect the future of bitcoin.

[cryptogoro]

I'm sure as time goes on there will be all kinds of rules and safeguards to prevent this from happening. The fact is though that nothing can be perfect, so people will always steal and someone will always pay for it. It is really lame for those of us who are honest c'est la vie

[veleten]

old news,also nothing was paid so it is a nonevent,haha
they wanted to pay for the leaked scenario for the season and also for the episode 4
it was leaked anyways way before the official release date,so there was no agreement
but this has put bitcoin on the map again,in this case there is no bad publicity