Iranian hacker charged with attacking the “Game of Thrones”

The US District Court for the Southern District for New York pressed charges against Iranian citizen Behzad Mesri for illegally accessing computer systems, fraud and extortion. According to the prosecution, it was Mesri who was behind the cyberattack on HBO in July. As a result of which, a script of an unaired “Game of Thrones” episode and several episodes of other popular HBO TV shows were published online. “Winter has come for Behzad Mesri”, said Joon Kim, the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, showing at least some knowledge of the “Game of Thrones”.

According to investigators, Mesri began the attack on several HBO employees that had remote access to company’s servers in May this year. After hacking their accounts, he stole the scripts, unaired episodes of several TV shows and many important documents of the channel. The Iranian demanded HBO management to pay him a ransom of $5.5 million in Bitcoin, later increasing the sum to $6 million. The ransom wasn’t paid and Mesri began publication of the materials. The prosecutor’s office states that Behzad Mesri is extremely experiences and qualified hacker. In the past he repeatedly carried out attacks for the Iranian military. He’s also a member of the Turk Black Hat Security team, which is responsible for hacking and defacing hundreds of websites all over the world.

The changes have been presented in absentia, since the location of Behzad Mesri is unknown. Most probably, he is at home in Iran. His further trips abroad seem quite problematic – the FBI added Mesri to the list of most wanted criminals.