Ardit Ferizi, aka Th3Dir3ctorY, 20, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and accessing a protected computer without authorization and obtaining information in order to provide material support to ISIL, last week.
According to court documents, Ferizi, a citizen of Kosovo, admitted that on or about June 13, 2015, he gained system administrator-level access to a server that maintained the website of a victim company located in the United States, which also contained databases with personally identifiable information (PII) belonging to tens of thousands of the victim company’s customers, including members of the military and other government personnel. He subsequently culled the PII belonging to United States military members and other government personnel, which totaled approximately 1,300 individuals. That same day, on June 13, 2015, Ferizi admitted that he provided the PII belonging to the 1,300 United States military members and government personnel to Junaid Hussain, aka Abu Hussain al-Britani, a now-deceased member of ISIL.
Related article: ISIL Operatives Cased Arizona Military Bases
According to the statement of facts, on Aug. 11, 2015, in the name of the Islamic State Hacking Division (ISHD), Hussain posted a tweet that contained a document with the PII of the approximately 1,300 U.S. military and other government personnel that Ferizi had taken from the victim company and provided to Hussain. The document stated, in part, that “we are in your emails and computer systems, watching and recording your every move, we have your names and addresses, we are in your emails and social media accounts, we are extracting confidential data and passing on your personal information to the soldiers of the khilafah, who soon with the permission of Allah will strike at your necks in your own lands!” Ferizi admitted that he provided the PII to ISIL with the understanding that ISIL would use the PII to “hit them hard.”
Ferizi was detained by Malaysian authorities on a provisional arrest warrant on behalf of the United States and was charged by criminal complaint on Oct. 6, 2015. The criminal complaint was unsealed on Oct. 15, 2015, and Ferizi subsequently waived consent to extradition. Ferizi pleaded guilty on June 15, 2016.