Hackers have leaked an email from HBO that offered $250,000 as a “bounty payment” in response to a ransom letter.
The email is dated July 27 and suggests that the network was negotiating with hackers regarding the breach. Since then, hackers have released unaired “Ballers and “Insecure” episodes, a “Game of Thrones” script and plot details, internal HBO data and emails from one executive’s inbox.
“We also have not been able to put into place the necessary infrastructure to be able to make a large payment in bitcoin, although we are taking steps to do so as you suggested,” the email response from HBO read.
According to a ransom letter released earlier this week in the so-called “second wave” of an info dump by an individual calling himself “Mr. Smith,” the hackers first contact with HBO was a message demanding at least $6 million in bitcoin. The ransom notice boasted that HBO was the group’s 17th target and pointed out that the HBO breach took six months to complete.
HBO declined to comment.