Geek Culture
HBO to Pay a $250,000 ‘Bug Bounty’ to Hackers
Several news outlets are reporting a leaked email from HBO that discusses ransom terms for information that was hacked from their servers. The initial breach on July 31st saw hackers take 1.5TB of information supposedly including scripts, episode descriptions, and marketing material, specifically targeting Game of Thrones. Certain individuals also had their emails stolen.
The email from a senior vice president of HBO, dated July 27, shows the network offered to make a ‘bug bounty payment’ of $250,000. ‘Bug bounty’ is essentially a term for paying hackers to expose and demonstrate security problems in companies’ cyber-security.
According to Variety and the Guardian, the email read ‘you have the advantage of having surprised us. In the spirit of professional cooperation, we are asking you to extend your deadline for one week’. Negotiation seemingly continued, with the introduction of monetary ‘good faith, saying ‘as a show of good faith on our side, we are willing to commit to making a bug bounty payment of $250,000 to you as soon as we can establish the necessary account and acquire Bitcoin’.
Offering a ‘bug bounty’ is an interesting development, as it raises the question of whether HBO will, in fact, pay the ‘six months salary’ ransom request made by the hacker previously; an amount that would total between $6 million and $7.5 million. This may result in a dangerous precedent being set, encouraging more people to hack big companies like HBO with the possibility for millions of (or hundreds of thousands at least) dollars to be coerced.
However, it’s worth noting at this point that the authenticity of the email is sketchy, as there is no way of knowing if it has been altered or even fabricated. Some outlets report the email was sent from the same account used to leak stolen data previously, therefore reliable enough to release at this time.
The Starbreeze cooperative multiplayer game Project Baxter is expected to follow PAYDAY. The official Dungeons & Dragons logo is on Starbreeze. However, we do not expect the studio to revere RPG settings like Larian did with Baldur’s Gate 3.
Starbreeze will develop and publish Project Baxter in 2026 for all major platforms. The company says it “will carry the signature Starbreeze game cornerstones of cooperative multiplayer, lifetime commitment through a Games as a Service model, community engagement, and a larger than life experience.”
Forgive the skepticism, but PAYDAY 3, Starbreeze’s latest release, lagged behind due to server issues that the CEO had to apologize for, taking two months to release the heist shooter’s first patch. It’s a disappointing story that may have gone unnoticed in a year with The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Kong: Rise of Skull Island, and The Walking Dead: Destinies.
Would you like a Starbreeze multiplayer live service D&D game? Is this to capitalize on the setting’s moment between Baldur’s Gate and the surprising good Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves?
Konami promised that free-to-play soccer sim eFootball would add PES’ massively popular Master League mode, but while this month’s v3.20 update will add more solo content, you’ll have to wait. My League lets you play full seasons as a single player with changing weather and exclusive rewards to reduce the wait.
You’ll replace a real team from your league, like England or Italy. The gacha system unlocks players that you’ll use to fight the AI and win the table. Play through the mode as many times as you want, with custom cutscenes and other features to track your progress. It all seems like a way to make dream team gameplay appealing to offline players.
Online play is also getting better. A new tier system will match you with players of similar skill levels, and co-op will soon let you join strangers instead of friends. You can use emojis to discuss your matches’ successes and failures or strategize with new allies.
We assume new cards with perks will allow Konami to create “rarer” versions of players when they perform certain real-life feats. A new login feature will include a penalty-taking minigame where you must score a goal to climb a ladder and unlock in-game rewards like virtual currency. For now, that’s it.
The critically panned game improves, but not as fast as former PES fans would like. The gameplay is good, and there are more things to do, but without that meaty single-player mode, old-school franchise fans will always rank it lower. Konami should revive one of the best solo sports game modes soon.
We expected it to be big, but this big? Only ten hours after Rockstar unceremoniously released GTA 6’s trailer after an unexpected leak, it has over 50 million views. This video is the top trending video on YouTube worldwide, ignoring mirrors from IGN and Gamespot.
Instead of waiting until later today, the developer released the first footage of the latest Grand Theft Auto after a watermarked version leaked on Twitter. The team is understandably upset, but the video’s overwhelming response will reassure it. It has 50 million views and 6.5 million likes.
This could reach 100 million by the end of the day as it’s shared worldwide and fans search for Easter eggs and secrets. How many times have you seen the new trailer?
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