The 20-year-old from Kosovo, who entered Malaysia in August 2014
to study computer science and forensics at a private institute in
the capital, Kuala Lumpur, will be extradited to the United States,
police said in a statement on Thursday night.
"Early investigation found the suspect communicated with one of the
right hand man (leader) of IS terrorist group in Syria to hack a few
servers containing information and details of U.S security personnel
and team," Malaysian police said.
"The details were then transferred to the operation unit of the IS
group for further action."
The U.S. Justice Department said the man, Ardit Ferizi, a citizen of
Kosovo and a known hacker, had been charged with hacking the
personal information of 1,351 U.S. military personnel and federal
employees and supporting Islamic State.
Ferizi, believed to be the leader of a Kosovar internet hacking
group called Kosova Hacker’s Security (KHS), hacked the computer
system of a U.S. company and stole the personal identification
information (PII) of thousands of individuals, the department said
in a statement on its website on Thursday.
Between June and August 2015 Ferizi allegedly provided the PII to an
Islamic State member, who in turn posted a tweet titled "NEW: U.S.
Military AND Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking
Division!” which contained a hyperlink to a 30-page document.
The document said in part: “we are in your emails and computer
systems, watching and recording your every move, we have your names
and addresses." It said that information would be passed on to
Islamic State fighters "who soon with the permission of Allah will
strike at your necks in your own lands!"
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The U.S. Justice Department statement said: "This posting was
intended to provide ISIL (Islamic State) supporters in the United
States and elsewhere with the PII belonging to the listed government
employees for the purpose of encouraging terrorist attacks against
those individuals."
Although Muslim-majority Malaysia has not seen any significant
militant attacks, it has arrested more than 100 citizens this year
on suspicion of links to Islamic State.
Authorities are cracking down on people with Islamic State links and
have so far identified several Malaysians who have gone to Syria and
Iraq to join the group.
In August, police arrested 10 Malaysians suspected of links to
Islamic State, among them six members of Malaysia's security forces.
(This version of the story fixes a typo in the paragraph three.)
(Reporting by Yantoultra Ngui, Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by
Michael Perry)
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