Hacker Accused of Giving Military Personal Data to ISIS in U.S. Court

NBC:

A hacker accused of stealing the names and addresses of American service members and giving them to ISIS was brought to a U.S. courtroom Wednesday to face terrorism charges.

Ardit Ferizi, a 20-year-old college student from Kosovo who was studying in Malaysia, appeared before a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia.

Prosecutors say he hacked into the Arizona database of an American retailer last year, then sent personal details of about 1,300 U.S. military and government personnel to an ISIS propagandist, who posted the information online and urged followers to attack them.

The posting warned that soldiers of ISIS would “strike at your necks in your own lands!”

At the request of the U.S., Ferizi was arrested by authorities in Kuala Lumpur last September. The Justice Department sought his extradition, and he was brought to the US this week to face the hacking and terrorism charges.

The FBI said Ferizi gave the data he stole to a British citizen, Junaid Hussain, who called himself Abu Hussain al-Britani and who posted it online last August.

Hussain was killed in a drone strike in Syria on August 24.