Iranian hacker accused of leaking Game of Thrones episodes

An Iranian computer hacker who used to attack military and nuclear targets for the armed forces of his country, was accused after allegedly leaking several HBO programs.

Behzad Mesri is accused of hacking HBO from May to August, and then leaked episodes of several programs, including Game of Thrones, after the channel refused to pay a $ 6 million ransom.

Mesri, who called himself 'Meñique' after a Machiavellian villain of Game of Thrones, also stole episodes of Ballers, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Deuce, as well as screenplays and plot summaries, according to a recently revealed indictment.

The attack came during the summer, as HBO was running a new season of Game of Thrones and his father, Time Warner, sought regulatory approval to be sold to AT & T in a deal of USD 85.4 billion.

The sealed indictment, which was released Tuesday by the US Attorney's office in Manhattan, accuses Mesri of the attack.

He says he is a "self-proclaimed expert" in hacking who worked on behalf of the Iranian army to attack military systems, nuclear software systems and Israeli infrastructure.

Newspapers say that Mesri, who is also known online as 'Skote Vahshat', called himself 'Littlefinger' in his threatening emails to HBO.

"Hello to all the losers!" An email reportedly reported. "If true! HBO is pirated (...) Beware of heart attacks. "

His emails also included images of the King of the Night, a monster similar to a Game of Thrones spectrum, with messages like "Good luck for HBO."

It is alleged that he sued $ 5.5 million in Bitcoin in exchange for not launching the stolen episodes, and then increased the figure to $ 6 million.

HBO said at the time that responding to the hacker was "a game in which we will not participate." Supposedly, Mesri stole 1.5 terabytes of HBO data in total.

He also alleged that Mesri helped an Iranian piracy group, the Turk Black Hat Security Team, to deface hundreds of websites in the United States and other countries.

Mesri could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the US Attorney's Office said that Mesri had not been arrested, but declined to comment on this whereabouts.