Malaysian police have arrested Ardit Ferizi, a Kosovo citizen, on an arrest warrant issued by US authorities. The US suspects him of being the main figure behind the ISIS data leaks.
Earlier in August, the Islamic State Hacking Division (also known as the Cyber Caliphate) published personal information of 1,351 American military and government personnel, along with encouragement to their group members to seek out these individuals and kill them.
The US, after a brief investigation, killed the head of the Hacking Division, Junaid Hussain, in a drone strike at the end of August.
Despite the fact that the leader of ISIS was killed, many security experts were not convinced that Hussain was the culprit behind the data breach, given that he had few technical skills to carry out such an elaborate attack.
Now, according to more details contained in Ferizi's arrest warrant, US authorities suspect Feziri as the real reason for carrying out the cyberattack.
The US alleges that Ferizi hacked the US retail business's database, from where he stole the personal data of over 100,000 people.
He then combined the data, and from it he made a list of those working in the military and government, and passed it on to various ISIS propagandists.
To do this, he used the @thedirectory Twitter handle, on which he maintains constant contact with many ISIS accounts.
Ferizi was arrested while trying to travel back home to Kosovo at Kuala Lumpur airport on September 15. He had gone there in August 2014 to study computer science.
Ferizi is no accident. He has a history of hacking, having been accused of hacking a local news portal at the age of 15.
