The HBO hacker is back in the spotlight. Just over a week ago, a hacker (or heckers) leaked the scripts for the final four seasons of Game of Thrones, as well as the personal phone numbers of the show's cast. 
Today, the hacker made public an email message he received from HBO executives offering him $250,000 as part of the bug bounty program.
Bug bounty programs are usually cash rewards offered to ethical hackers who identify security flaws in corporate systems. This hacker, however, exploited the flaw in an attempt to cause damage to HBO, and thus it is very strange that the network is trying to reward him.
The move appears to be a game to buy time for HBO until it understands the full extent of the breach.
But we have to wonder if a network is offering such an amount to avoid a bigger disaster, what amounts are at stake with the leaks that plague companies like Sony, something we've seen in recent years.
This “bug bounty”, after all, seems more like a ransom than a reward.
