Hacker who helped the ISIS will remain in US prison

The hacker who shared with the ISIS personal data of more than 1,300 U.S. government and military personnel will remain in a federal prison.

Ardit Ferizi, aka Th3Dir3ctorY, is the hacker that supported the ISIS organization by handing over data for 1,351 US government and military personnel.

Ferizi is the first man charged with cyber terrorism that was extradited to the US early 2016.

The man was charged with hacking crimes and providing support to a terrorist organization. The 24-year-old man was accused of supporting the ISIS terrorist organization, he was the subject of extradition from the Malaysian government, where he lived. The man of Kosovar origin was studying computer science in Malaysia.

He was arrested in Malaysia in September 2015 and transferred to the US to face trial.

Now Ardit Ferizi has been sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. prison. According to the US investigators, he provided the data to the popular IS militant Junaid Hussain, which disclosed it on the web. The collaboration between the IS hackers Hussain and Ferizi started in April 2015, according to the US authorities.

The details of the Ferizi’s case are described in s court filings [PDF].

Leaked data included names, e-mail addresses, passwords, locations and phone numbers of 1,351 U.S. military and other government personnel.

The ISIS-linked hacker obtained the data by hacking into the US web hosting company’s servers on June 13, 2015.

The US authorities suspected that Ferizi is a member of a Kosovan hacking team known as KHS, he used the pseudonym of “Th3Dir3ctorY”. The KHS breached a database of a US retailer was able to identify the records belonging to military and government personnel.

The Kosova Hacker’s Security (KHS) hit numerous organizations across the world, including Serbian Government websites, Israeli websites under the #OpIsrael campaign, The Interpol, IBM Research, Hotmail, US National Weather Service Website and numerous targets in Ukraine.

I wrote about Ferizi in October 2015, when the man was arrested by Malaysian authorities because for the first time ever the US Justice Department has charged a suspect for terrorism and hacking (cyber terrorism).

Ferizi was pleaded guilty on June 15, 2016, now is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and is scheduled for release in 2032 if he gets credit for good behavior.

Ferizi asked a federal judge in Alexandria to release him from prison due to his health status.

“In a handwritten motion from prison, he said his asthma and obesity place him at greater risk of contracting COVID-19.” reads the post published by Associated Press. “He also said special restrictions at the prison require him to check in with staff every two hours, increasing his contact with guards and his risk of contracting the virus.”

Now prosecutors refused the request of hacker and opposed his release. The U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected Ferizi’s request at a hearing Tuesday, the authorities believe that the man could teiterate his criminal activity.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ISIS)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.