The saga of the HBO hack has been weird and complicated, especially in comparison to the relatively straightforward (though significantly more destructive) Sony hack, with the most recent updates involving some evidence that the hackers may be exaggerating about how much they had stolen and the revelation that HBO had tried to pay them off, but the premium cable network has officially stopped fucking around. That comes from a new statement that HBO has released (via Variety), which you can read in full below:
We are not in communication with the hacker and we’re not going to comment every time a new piece of information is released. It has been widely reported that there was a cyber incident at HBO. 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. Obviously, no company wants their proprietary information stolen and released on the internet. Transparency with our employees, partners, and the creative talent that works with us has been our focus throughout this incident and will remain our focus as we move forward. This incident has not deterred us from ensuring HBO continues to do what we do best.
The impetus for this pivot to seriousness was that the hackers—or at least somebody—just leaked a few new episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which isn’t supposed to return until October. Up until now, most of the leaks have been based around Game Of Thrones and lower-profile shows like Ballers and Insecure, but this Curb leak seems to have pushed HBO a bit further than the others.