The U.S. government is bringing the hammer down on an Iranian national responsible for hacking HBO last summer and holding episode descriptions, as well as a cache of emails from HBO execs, as ransom.
The hacker’s name is Behzad Mesri. He was indicted in November of 2017 after he tried to extort $6 million in bitcoin from HBO, operating under the name “little.finger66,” because of course that’s the name he chose. Now, the Justice Department has officially sanctioned him. Mesri claimed to have scripts of episodes from Game of Thrones season 7, as well as a months worth of emails from HBO vice president of programming Leslie Cohen. So far as we can tell, he never actually got a hold of advance episodes, although those leaked on their own. He did leak the phone numbers of home addresses of several cast members, though, so sanctions and more are definitely warranted.
According to prosecutors, Mesri and the other hackers were working at the behest of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and were affiliated with the Mabna Institute, a company that has hacked on behalf of the Iranian government since 2013. They were part of a hacking scheme that saw several universities, private companies, and government agencies have “sensitive information” stolen.
Since the US does not have an extradition treaty with Iran, the hackers will likely never be prosecuted in a U.S. court. However, that isn’t stopping the U.S. government from calling them out personally as part of its “name and shame” strategy, which publicly identifies foreign hackers and puts their countries of origin on notice. On Friday, FBI Director Christopher Wray made a statement regarding the sanctions:
"Today, not only are we publicly identifying the foreign hackers who committed these malicious cyber intrusions, but we are also sending a powerful message to their backers, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran: your acts do not go unnoticed. We will protect our innovation, ideas, and information, and we will use every tool in our toolbox to expose those who commit these cybercrimes. Our memory is long; we will hold them accountable under the law, no matter where they attempt to hide."
Let’s hope winter comes for Mesri.
Next: Yet another new structure added to the King’s Landing set in Belfast
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h/t Fox News