In the leaked e-mail from HBO to the hackers on July 27, the network offered to make a bug bounty payment of $250,000 in Bitcoin “as a show of good faith.”
Bug bounties are often awarded to “white hat” security researchers as a reward for identifying vulnerabilities and bringing them to their attention versus exploiting.
The message also asks the hackers to extend their ransom-payment deadline by one week. “You have the advantage of having surprised us,” HBO said in its e-mail.