HBO offered a $250,000 'reward' to the hackers who are currently extorting the company. The information comes from Variety who received a screenshot from the hackers that shows email communication between the hackers and HBO.
In the email, HBO offers the hackers to pay them as part of the company's 'bounty program'. This program rewards 'white hat' hackers for reporting security issues to the company. The message was sent on the 27th of July.
A source of Variety claims that HBO wanted to stretch time so the video service could investigate what kind of damage it was dealing with. The company reportedly also hoped that the $250,000 would be sufficient to prevent a leak such as that from Sony or Netflix.
The hackers stated in a video that they want a much higher 'fee'. The anonymous group stated to be aiming for half of their annual salary which would be between $12 and $15 million.
By hacking HBO, the criminals obtained scripts of Game of Thrones and unaired episodes of the series Ballers and Insecure.
