HBO still can’t catch a break, has its Twitter accounts hacked

Among many other more important things, 2017 may one day be remembered as the year HBO could not catch a freaking break. Since the new season of Game of Thrones started, the network has been hit with an almost non-stop series of hacks and leaks, some of which came from outside groups and some of which were internal. That continued last night.

First, let’s run through a quick timeline of HBO’s woes of late:

• First, a group of hackers stole an alleged 1.5 terabytes of data from the network, releasing episodes of shows like Ballers as well as scripts for future Game of Thrones episodes. Last we checked, they were trying to extort HBO for money under threat of releasing more data.
• But really, the worst breaches have come from within HBO itself, or from its partners. First, employees of a company associated with broadcasting the show in India stole and leaked “The Spoils of War,” the fourth episode of season 7. Last we checked, the people responsible had been arrested.
• Then, just earlier this week, the sixth episode of season 7 — “Beyond the Wall” — leaked after HBO Spain and HBO Nordic accidentally made it available early. How could things get worse?

Last night, the hacking group OurMine broke into several of HBO’s Twitter accounts, including those for shows like Game of Thrones and Girls, and tried to get #HBOHacked trending. They also posted a message. “Hi, OurMine are here, we are just testing your security, HBO team please contact us to upgrade the security.” So more extortion.

The messages were deleted within an hour of them going up, with HBO seemingly back in control. In the past, OurMine has hacked accounts for the Twitter accounts of people like Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook co-founder Mark Zucherberg. They also hacked the Twitter account of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which I’m sure seemed funny to them when they did it.

So it’s getting pretty crazy how many of these breaches have occurred in such a short series of time. Some have found levity in the speed of it all:

I don’t know how good HBO’s security is, but I imagine it’s better than most companies’, given how careful they are about now protecting Game of Thrones spoilers. But of course, Game of Thrones spoilers get out anyway, so the main lesson may be that if hackers want a way in bad enough, they’ll eventually find one.

The silver lining to all of this is that, despite the leaks, ratings for Game of Thrones are higher than they’ve ever been, so maybe the other lesson is that even though some breaches are inevitable on a show as high-profile as this one, they don’t do a lot of damage in the long run. That’s gotta be the hope HBO is clinging to, anyway.

Next: HBO releases official photos from Game of Thrones Episode 706, “Beyond the Wall”

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h/t The Guardian