In a first, U.S. charges a suspect with terrorism and hacking

The Justice Department has charged a hacker in Malaysia with stealing the personal data of U.S. service members and passing it to the Islamic State terrorist group, which urged supporters online to attack them.

The charges, announced Thursday, are the first ever against a suspect for terrorism and hacking, and they represent a troubling convergence of the techniques used in cyber-attacks with terrorism, U.S. officials said.

Ardit Ferizi, a citizen of Kosovo, was detained in Malaysia on a U.S. provisional arrest warrant, officials said. He was arrested a month ago, according to Malaysian news media.

Ferizi is accused of passing the data to Islamic State member Junaid Hussain, a British citizen who in August posted links on Twitter to the names, email addresses, passwords, locations and phone numbers of 1,351 U.S. military and other government personnel. Hussain, who went by Abu Hussain al-Britani, was killed in a drone strike in Syria later that month.

U.S. authorities will have to work with Kuala Lumpur to extradite Ferizi to the United States. -- Washington Post