FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

“Winter will come” for Iranian hacker who stole Game of Thrones scripts, U.S. says

Last summer, someone leaked all the details of Game of Thrones’ upcoming season 7 online.

Now, American prosecutors say they know who did it: a hacker who used to work for the Iranian military and tried to extort $6 million worth of bitcoin from HBO in the process.

While he hasn’t been arrested yet, prosecutors unveiled charges against him Tuesday while vowing to bring a GoT-style doomsday scenario down upon him. “Eventually, winter will come,” acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon H. Kim said.

Advertisement

American prosecutors charged the hacker, 29-year-old Behzad Mesri, aka “Skote Vahshat,” with a raft of crimes, including wire fraud, computer hacking and aggravated identify theft. The wire fraud charge alone carries a penalty of 20 years.

But U.S. prosecutors have a problem: Mesri is based in Iran. It remains doubtful whether Iran, which has a complicated relationship with the U.S. to say the least, would be willing to turn over a one of its own ex-cyber warriors who used to conduct official covert operations on behalf of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic.

Mesri learned to hack working for the Iranian military, breaking into Israeli infrastructure and other military and nuclear software systems, U.S prosecutors said. As a part-time member of the Iran-based hacking group called the Turk Black Hat security team, he defaced hundreds of website in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Then, last spring, according to U.S. prosecutors, he went after HBO.

On July 23, 2017, Mesri sent emails to HBO letting them know he’d downloaded 1.5 terabytes of their data.

He sent them an image of the Game of Thrones’ Night King — with the message: “Good luck to HBO.”

Plots and scripts of future Game of Thrones episodes weren’t the only thing he stole from HBO’s computer systems. He also successfully downloaded full episodes of “Barry,” “Ballers,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Room 104,” and “The Deuce.”

Then he demanded $6 million. If not paid immediately, he threatened to start releasing the stolen data online. Soon after that, he leaked the data.

Advertisement

U.S. prosecutors said they’ll get him, eventually, or else force him to live in fear.

“He will forever have to look over his shoulder until he is made to face justice,” Kim said.

Everyone hates a spoiler.

Disclosure: VICE News produces two news shows for HBO, VICE News Tonight and VICE on HBO.