OurMine hack HBO to offer help against hackers

HBO has had a tough time with hackers lately, with sensitive information being ransacked and held to ransom. The American TV network has experienced yet another attack today, however in a twist of fate, the perpetrators are a lot more noble in their cause.

Today’s attack came from OurMine, a group of professional hackers that specialise in online security and present themselves as a white hat organisation. The company took control of various HBO media accounts, including the Game of Thrones official Twitter page. Although an official statement has yet to be released by HBO or OurMine, it seems that no data was taken and that the hack was purely for ethical reasons if these screenshots by Twitter user Deepu are anything to go by.

Looks like HBO has lost control over its verified accounts. #OurMine has taken over; hopefully just to show off. pic.twitter.com/9ydIzBAr7G

— Deepu (@deepusebastian) August 17, 2017

“Hi, OurMine are here, we are just testing your security, HBO team please contact us to upgrade the security,” reads one of the now deleted tweets.

This indicates a bit of a departure from OurMine’s questionable past, as the company are known for exposing the social media accounts of high-profile company executives such as Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.

OurMine’s hack comes in the wake of HBO’s announcement of its “bug bounty program to reward ‘white hat’ IT professionals.” It is currently unknown as to whether the network will respond to OurMine’s offer, but it’s certainly nice to see something somewhat positive happening amongst the negativity.

KitGuru Says: Unfortunately for the company, hackers aren’t the only thing it needs to be careful of as HBO itself accidentally released an episode on its own, so be careful of potential spoilers for those that didn’t catch the viewing. Are you keeping up to date with the show?

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