HBO cryptocurrency extortionist revealed, officials promise “winter is coming” for him

Remember the Game of Thrones hack? Yes, it seems like it was long ago, but this story was always a hot topic for those responsible for finding the cryptocurrency extortionist, who demanded a considerable sum in bitcoins from the HBO management, insolently threatening to leak new Game of Thrones scripts online. And it turns out that while other people were doing their jobs as usual since the initial summer news on this hack, the law enforcement was doing theirs much quicker than usual, eventually finding out the one behind the attacks and threats.

His name is Behzad Mesri, and he was the member of the Iranian government-backed hacker team known for attacking the Israeli computer systems. The United States attorney Joon Kim has made an impressive speech on the matter. He told that while this hacker sometimes threatened HBO that “winter is coming” (referencing to the popular phrase from Game of Thrones show), winter will actually come for Mr. Mesri, even if he is not in America. According to the attorney, Mesri is already on the FBI’s most wanted list and his life is not going to be the same ever again.

While Game of Thrones scripts were the central subject of the hacker’s threats, he also managed to illegally acquire new unreleased episodes of Ballers, Room 104 and Curb Your Enthusiasm series. Behzad Mesri might hide in Iran, but “the memory of American law enforcement is very long”, stated Mr. Kim, telling this criminal will be swiftly caught once he travels somewhere outside Iran.