The HBO vs. hackers known as “Mr. Smith” standoff continues, as several episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Insecure” and “Ballers” were leaked Sunday.
The highly-anticipated October return of the Larry David comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has became Mr. Smith’s latest target in an attempt to further their ransom demands of “our 6-month salary in bitcoin,” or about $6 million to $7.5 million.
But HBO doesn’t appear to be budging. They said in a statement, “This incident has not deterred us from ensuring HBO continues to do what we do best.”
The statement from HBO reads:
“We are not in communication with the hacker and we’re not going to comment every time a new piece of information is released. It has been widely reported that there was a cyber incident at HBO. The hacker may continue to drop bits and pieces of stolen information in an attempt to generate media attention. That’s a game we’re not going to participate in. Obviously, no company wants their proprietary information stolen and released on the internet. Transparency with our employees, partners, and the creative talent that works with us has been our focus throughout this incident and will remain our focus as we move forward. This incident has not deterred us from ensuring HBO continues to do what we do best.”
Mr. Smith’s 3.4 gigabyte release on Monday included five “Game of Thrones” scripts — including one upcoming episode — and a month’s worth of emails from an HBO executive. In a letter included with its “second wave” info dump, the hackers said it took them six months to breach HBO’s system and that the network was its 17th target.
The hack didn’t faze “Game of Thrones” ratings, with the show hauling in more than 10 million viewers last Sunday — a 10 percent bump from the week before — despite the episode leaking online a few days earlier.
In addition to “Curb,” tonight’s episode of “Insecure” was also leaked, along with episodes of “Ballers” and new series, “The Deuce” starring James Franco (scheduled to premiere Sept. 10) and “Barry,” the Bill Hader comedy set for a January 2018 debut.