The US has accused an Iranian hacker of hacking into HBO servers and stealing Game of Thrones scripts.

In New York, the prosecutor's office announced that 29-year-old Iranian Behzad Mesri had been charged in absentia with hacking into the servers of the HBO television channel.

The accused, as follows from the message, is in Iran. “Although Mesri has not been arrested, he will have to look back forever until he is brought to justice,” prosecutors said.

According to the US Department of Justice, in the past Mesri worked as a hacker for the Iranian military and carried out cyberattacks, in particular, on Israeli systems. More recently, under the pseudonym Skote Vahshat, he has operated as part of the Iranian hacker group Turk Black Hat.

Between May and July 2017, Mesri managed to hack into the accounts of several users of HBO computer networks, gain access to servers and steal various documents, including scripts and video files with unreleased programs. He later demanded a six million dollar ransom from HBO in bitcoin.

He faces up to 20 years in prison in the US.

• HBO servers were hacked at the end of July. Hackers announced that they had stolen one and a half terabytes of data and, in support of their words, posted on the Internet the script for the fourth episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones and several episodes of Football Players and Room 104.
• The criminals demanded six million dollars in bitcoins from the TV channel. It was reported that HBO - perhaps to play for time - was in talks with the hackers and asked for a delay, saying that they needed time to buy bitcoins.
• In the summer of 2017, during the Game of Thrones series, it hit the Internet twice before its official release. The leaks were reportedly unrelated to the HBO hack.