Kosovo hacker assembled Daesh kill list with data on 1,351 US Officials

Kosovo hacker assembled Daesh kill list with data on 1,351 US Officials

In August 2015 an online retailer based in Illinois contacted the FBI, claiming that a hacker had breached the company’s system and was demanding a ransom of two bitcoins, or roughly $500. Such reports are not unusual, with cyber ransom becoming something of a cottage industry.
Investigators found, however, that the ransom demand was only a cover. The hacker had actually spent the previous two months scanning the company’s files for.gov and.mil email addresses, compiling a list for Daesh, also known as IS/Islamic State.

The investigation revealed that the company would not have known about the intrusion if not for the ransom demand.

With the stolen data, the terrorist group compiled a 30-page kill list containing the names of roughly 1,350 US government personnel. A link to the list was tweeted by Junaid Hussain, a self-proclaimed Daesh cyber army leader, last August.

The theft was revealed in US federal court records, obtained by McClatchy. Identified as Kosovo-born Ardit Ferizi, the hacker traveled to Malaysia to get better bandwidth access to carry out his exploits.

From Singapore, Ferezi was extradited to the US, where he signed a plea agreement in which he admitted to hacking and providing material support to terrorists.

Source: /Sputnik