Four months after the spectacular robbery, the federal district attorney’s office of the Southern District of New York has identified the culprit of the cyber attacks. This is Behzad Mesri, alias ‘Skote Vahshat’, an Iranian hacker who has not yet been arrested. Of course, it is on the list of the most wanted by the FBI. The prosecution charges him with seven counts, including cyber fraud, identity theft, and extortion. These crimes, committed between last May and August, can mean for Mesri, 29, a prison sentence of a maximum of 20 years in prison. “HBO became the victim of a malicious cyber attack,” said interim district federal prosecutor Joon H. Kim during the press briefing on the accusations against Mesri. The prosecutor has added that the accused is in Iran, so he has not yet been arrested, but warned that they will use all the tools to find him and bring him to justice in the United States. Behzad Mesri asked, in exchange for the stolen data, 6 million dollars in Bitcoin, a figure that was not paid by HBO. Finally, the information was leaked, including some still unpublished chapters of the seventh season of ‘Game of Thrones’, HBO franchise series. The Iranian acceded to the server of the chain when ‘kidnapping’ the accounts of the employees and, in this way, managed to steal, among other files of the chain, scripts, and financial documents. According to the prosecution, Behzad Mesri worked as a ‘hacker’ for the Iranian Army with the aim of attacking nuclear ‘software’ systems and other Israeli military secrets. In the statement, he is also accused of having been part of the piracy group ‘Iran Turk black hat’, which attacked hundreds of websites in several countries under the pseudonym ‘Skote Vahshat’. So, what do you think about this? Simply share your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
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