US prosecutors have charged an Iran-based hacker with hacking into HBO's computer system, leaking unaired episodes of Game of Thrones scripts and demanding $6million (£4.5m) in Bitcoins as ransom.
According to an indictment filed on Tuesday in U.S District Court in Manhattan accused Behzad Mesri of computer fraud, wire fraud, extortion and identity theft.
Mesri is a member of Turk Black Hat Security hacking team, who defaced hundreds of websites in the United States and other countries. He has also worked on behalf of the Iranian military to attacks against Israel's military systems, nuclear software systems, and infrastructure.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said, "He will never be able to travel outside of Iran without fear of being arrested and brought here to face these charges," Kim said. "The memory of American law enforcement is very long."
During May, Mesri had launched a campaign to gain an unauthorized access to HBO's servers through employee user accounts. He succeeded, even though the firm has a sophisticated defense system.
"Over the next couple of months, he successfully compromised multiple user accounts in order to obtain access to the media giant's servers," court documents say.
"Through the course of the intrusions into HBO's systems, Mr. Mesri was responsible for stealing confidential and proprietary data including... scripts and plot summaries for unaired programming, including but not limited to episodes of Game of Thrones."
It is alleged that he had stolen about 1.5TB of data and was started a campaign for ransom amount. He sent hundreds of email to HBO employees that read: "Hi to All losers" Yes it's true! HBO is hacked!"
However, it is still unclear whether any ransom money was paid or not.
Mr. Mesri has not yet commented on the charges.
According to an indictment filed on Tuesday in U.S District Court in Manhattan accused Behzad Mesri of computer fraud, wire fraud, extortion and identity theft.
Mesri is a member of Turk Black Hat Security hacking team, who defaced hundreds of websites in the United States and other countries. He has also worked on behalf of the Iranian military to attacks against Israel's military systems, nuclear software systems, and infrastructure.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said, "He will never be able to travel outside of Iran without fear of being arrested and brought here to face these charges," Kim said. "The memory of American law enforcement is very long."
During May, Mesri had launched a campaign to gain an unauthorized access to HBO's servers through employee user accounts. He succeeded, even though the firm has a sophisticated defense system.
"Over the next couple of months, he successfully compromised multiple user accounts in order to obtain access to the media giant's servers," court documents say.
"Through the course of the intrusions into HBO's systems, Mr. Mesri was responsible for stealing confidential and proprietary data including... scripts and plot summaries for unaired programming, including but not limited to episodes of Game of Thrones."
It is alleged that he had stolen about 1.5TB of data and was started a campaign for ransom amount. He sent hundreds of email to HBO employees that read: "Hi to All losers" Yes it's true! HBO is hacked!"
However, it is still unclear whether any ransom money was paid or not.
Mr. Mesri has not yet commented on the charges.
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