They haven't quite solved their hacking problem yet, but HBO executives can now sleep a little easier at night. A group of men responsible for leaking a recent episode of Game of Thrones have been arrested in India, following an investigation into the matter by police in Mumbai.
The men responsible, who leaked the all-time great episode, "The Spoils of War," in advance of its premiere, were connected to a company named Star India, who own the rights to air Game of Thrones inside the country. They were not employees of Star India directly, but at one point or another the four men all worked for a company called Prime Focus Technologies, which was responsible for handling Star India's data. Not so difficult a connection to make.
In a statement released by Star India, the company expressed their gratitude toward local police, thanking them for helping to clear their name.
"This is the first time in the history of Star India that an incident of this nature has occurred. We are deeply grateful to the police for their swift and prompt action," read the statement. "We at Star India & Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited stand committed and ready to help the law enforcement agencies with any technical assistance and help they may require in taking the investigation to its logical conclusion."
The bad news is, these are not the men responsible for hacking into HBO, and so an alleged 1.5 terabytes of their data is still floating out there in cyberspace. There have already been several substantial leaks of HBO data, including new episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and personal information for stars of Game of Thrones, and things only appear to be getting worse for the network.
Still, they've remained defiant staring down the cyber attackers, insisting they're not going to play ball.
"We are not in communication with the hacker and we’re not going to comment every time a new piece of information is released," the company said in a statement. "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."
HBO has reportedly offered $250,000 in exchange for the return of stolen data, but the hackers are demanding upward of $6 million for what they took from the network.
