Owner of the pirate site accused of hacking MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, as well as extortion

The US Department of Justice has indicted Joshua Straight, a resident of Minnesota, who was hacking accounts of MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL users in order to obtain content for his pirate streaming site.

Moreover, Straight is accused of hacking into Major League Baseball (MLB) computer systems and attempting to extort $ 150,000 from the league. Otherwise, Straight threatened to release MLB security vulnerabilities, which he used to compromise the league.

On the Internet, Straight was known by the nicknames Josh Brody and inflx, and from August 2017 to August 2021, he operated the pirate sports website HeHeStreams. He used access to other people’s accounts in MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL systems to intercept broadcasts of games, which he then relayed on his website. Pirate streams were part of the paid package. Thus, a subscription to HeHeStreams gave users access to broadcasts of the games of the four listed US sports leagues at prices lower than on the official sites. For example, unlimited streams of a full season of MLB games on HeHeStreams cost $ 100 a year.

The court documents detail how the FBI established the real identity of the HeHeStreams operator. Law enforcement was able to track down the operator of the site after he used the same nickname (inflx) both in HeHeStreams chat and on Reddit.

Using data from the Reddit administration, investigators discovered that the account was registered to an email address that Straight used for his personal blog, where he often published various information security studies. Then, data provided by other companies and internet service providers helped to establish an accurate connection between the operator HeHeStreams and Straight’s home IP address.

Let me remind you that we also reported that Gary Bowser Pleded Guilty and Will Now Pay Nintendo $ 4.5 Million.