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HBO hackers reportedly leak emails, demand money

Hackers release a month's worth of emails from an executive at the company, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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Steven Musil
2 min read
Cropped Hand Of Computer Hacker Typing On Keyboard

Hackers behind the hack of HBO release what appears to be emails from an HBO executive's inbox.

Oliver Nicolaas Ponder / EyeEm

Last month's hack of HBO may be more extensive than originally thought.

The hackers who posted several of HBO's new episodes and a "Game of Thrones" script online in late July have published a month's worth of emails from the inbox of one of the entertainment company's executives, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday. The report didn't identify the executive or the contents of the emails.

Hackers also addressed a video letter to HBO CEO Richard Plepler that demands the company demand payment of money, although the figure was redacted, according to the report.

"We successfully breached into your huge network. … HBO was one of our difficult targets to deal with but we succeeded (it took about 6 months)," the letter to Plepler said. The hackers said HBO marked their 17th victim, and only three have failed to pay.

HBO is the latest entertainment company to suffer a hack that resulted in the loss of valuable, jealously guarded content. Hackers claim to have stolen 1.5TB of data from the company, including forthcoming episodes of "Ballers" and "Room 104," and posting them online. Hackers warned last month that more material was yet to come.

HBO said its forensic review of the incident is ongoing and noted that it believed further leaks were forthcoming.

"While it has been reported that a number of emails have been made public, the review to date has not given us a reason to believe that our e-mail system as a whole has been compromised," the company said in a statement.

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