Photo by: Home Box Office via Wikimedia Commons

HBO is making headlines once again following a recent cybersecurity attack that has led to the leaking of the fourth episode of Game Of Thrones entitled, “The Spoils of War”. Fans of the show can’t help but be reminded of the last time Game of Thrones episodes were leaked. Two years ago, episodes one to four (1-4) of the fifth season were released online before their planned air date.

Previous to the fifth season’s leak, HBO used to send advanced media screenings of Game of Thrones episodes. Since season five, HBO has ended the practice; however, the effort was made in vain after this week’s hacking.

What appears to be overnight, this newly leaked episode came online with a logo for Star India on the leaked version. Star India is an affiliate of HBO, and has the right to air Game of Thrones episodes in India. Although this fourth episode was leaked, it will still be running on HBO’s network at its pre-planned screening time.

It was a Reddit user who shared the leaked file; which is no longer available. It was distributed through a Google Drive file; however, it violated the Google terms of service and was removed.

In a statement to the public, the popular television network said, “HBO recently experienced a cyber incident, which resulted in the compromise of proprietary information. We immediately began investigating the incident and are working with law enforcement and outside cybersecurity firms.”

The hackers did not only get their grip on Game of Thrones episodes, though. It has been reported that one and a half terabytes of data has been hacked and accessed. Episodes from Ballers and Room 104 were also leaked.

The episodes and information were also leaked to the website WinterLeak. On this website, the following statement can be read: “this is the greatest leak of cyberspace era [...] in a complicated operation, we successfully penetrated into the HBO Internal Network, Emails, technical platforms, and database and got precious and confidential stuff that blaze your eyes.”

Since then, the website has been taken down and is no longer available to the public. This hasn’t stopped the leaked episodes from being posted on piracy sites. Already, social media is buzzing with memes full of spoilers. An email was sent out to reporters and news stations before the attack which read as follows: “Hi to all mankind [...] whoever spreads well, we will have an interview with him. HBO is following.”

The Threat to Cybersecurity

HBO has been struggling to deal with this threat since the hackers claim to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data from their system. This is a major breach in their security and measures will be taken to prevent it from happening again.

To put it into perspective, a Blu-ray DVD usually has around fifty gigs (Gb) of data. The data taken from HBO’s network is equivalent to about thirty of these Blu-ray discs. Not only were the episodes leaked, but the hackers also promised to release more information.

For anyone concerned about the security breach, the network claims that there is an investigation currently being conducted to find the source of this hack. Fans of HBO and Game of Thrones can only hope that in the future, the television network will have increased cybersecurity.