Prosecutors Charge Iranian National in HBO Hacking

By Nicole Hong 

Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against an Iranian national Tuesday, accusing him of hacking into HBO's computer network, stealing unreleased scripts of "Game of Thrones" and then threatening to leak them publicly unless HBO paid a multimillion-dollar ransom.

Behzad Mesri, who is at large and hasn't been arrested, was charged by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office on seven counts, including computer fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The government said Mr. Mesri is a computer hacker in Iran who has worked on behalf of the Iranian military to target Israeli infrastructure and nuclear software systems. He has allegedly operated under an online hacker pseudonym of "Skote Vahshat."

A lawyer for Mr. Mesri couldn't immediately be identified.

Since at least May, Mr. Mesri began monitoring the online activities of HBO employees, looking for vulnerabilities in the company's network, according to prosecutors.

Over the next couple months, Mr. Mesri compromised user accounts that belonged to HBO employees and used them repeatedly to gain unauthorized access and steal proprietary information from the company, the indictment said.

Mr. Mesri allegedly stole scripts and plot summaries for unaired episodes of HBO's series "Game of Thrones," as well as video files with unaired episodes of such shows as "Ballers" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

He also stole financial documents, credentials for HBO's social media accounts and the emails of at least one HBO employee, the indictment said.

On July 23, an anonymous email was sent to HBO employees that included the following message: "Hi to All losers! Yes it's true! HBO is hacked!" The email allegedly provided evidence that the hacker had successfully stolen proprietary data from HBO, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Another email later that day included a threat to publicly release the stolen data, including unaired TV episodes and scripts, unless HBO paid a ransom of approximately $5.5 million worth of bitcoin. The email concluded with an image of the Night King, a character from "Game of Thrones," and said: "Good luck to HBO."

In the coming days, emails from the anonymous hacker to HBO personnel raised the ransom to approximately $6 million worth of bitcoin, threatened to destroy data on HBO's servers and provided a deadline of July 29 for HBO to begin making ransom payments if it wanted to prevent the public disclosure of stolen data.

On July 30, Mr. Mesri began leaking some stolen materials over the internet, prosecutors said. To promote the disclosures, Mr. Mesri allegedly contacted members of the media and created a Twitter account to announce the leaks.

A spokesman for HBO said the company has been "working with law enforcement from the early stages of the cyber incident."

In recent years, hackers have increasingly used cyber extortion -- or stealing corporate secrets and threatening to publicize them if the victims don't pay a ransom -- as a way to make money, with Hollywood studios as particularly attractive targets, experts say.

Write to Nicole Hong at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 21, 2017 11:30 ET (16:30 GMT)

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