KUALA LUMPUR/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At the request of the United States, Malaysia has arrested a man on charges of hacking personal data of more than a thousand U.S. officials and handing it to Islamic State militants in Syria so they could target the individuals.
The man, 20-year-old Ardit Ferizi from Kosovo, who entered Malaysia in August 2014 to study computer science and forensics, will be extradited to the United States, police said on Thursday night.
The suspect communicated with an Islamic State member in Syria about hacking servers containing information and details of U.S security personnel, Malaysian police said.
"The details were then transferred to the operation unit of the IS group for further action," the police said in a statement.
U.S. government experts say that in practise, Islamic State's hacking exploits have been rudimentary and have done little known damage to any targeted institutions or individuals.
In contrast, the group's coterie of cyber specialists is regarded by American and allied government counterterrorism agencies as highly sophisticated in its use of social media to spread Islamic State's message and recruit new members and supporters.
The U.S. Justice Department said Ferizi, 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.
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