FBI detained a 23-year-old British cyber expert on Wednesday, who stopped the global WannaCry ransomware spread, on the charges that he helped create and sell Kronos banking software that contained trojan malware and targeted bank accounts.
Marcus Hutchins, AKA MalwareTech, was arrested from Las Vegas while he was flying home in UK after addressing two annual hacking conferences-Black Hat and Def Con.
According to the US Department of Justice indictment, Hutchins faces six counts of helping to create, spread and maintain the banking Trojan Kronos between 2014 and 2015. He could spend maximum 40 years in a US prison found guilty of the charges.
Hutchins was being held at the Henderson Detention Center in Nevada early on Thursday. A few hours after, Hutchins was moved to another facility.
In May, WannaCry infected hospitals in the UK, a Spanish telecommunications company, and other targets in Russia, Turkey, Germany, Vietnam, and more. Hutchins, a researcher from cybersecurity firm Kryptos Logic, inadvertently stopped WannaCry in its tracks by registering a specific website domain included in the malware's code and saved the NHS from cyber hackers.
Over 300,000 computers were infected by the WannaCry ransomware globally, which had encrypted people’s data on infected computers. Users would have to pay a ransom of $300 bitcoins to get back the data. Many people were locked out of their computers, and could not retrieve important data.
The cyber genius has been blogging under the pseudonym 'MalwareTech' and has a twitter handle as well but remained unknown till he became the hero of WannaCry attack. Thereafter, he gave several interviews to the media as well.
According to the FBI, Hutchins created the Kronos Malware which was used to hack banking systems in Canada and Europe. The indictment papers put Hutchins as a co-accused in the case, but the other person’s name has been redacted from the document.
Hutchins owned Lamborghinis, rented £5m mansion and fired machine guns.
Marcus Hutchins, AKA MalwareTech, was arrested from Las Vegas while he was flying home in UK after addressing two annual hacking conferences-Black Hat and Def Con.
According to the US Department of Justice indictment, Hutchins faces six counts of helping to create, spread and maintain the banking Trojan Kronos between 2014 and 2015. He could spend maximum 40 years in a US prison found guilty of the charges.
Hutchins was being held at the Henderson Detention Center in Nevada early on Thursday. A few hours after, Hutchins was moved to another facility.
In May, WannaCry infected hospitals in the UK, a Spanish telecommunications company, and other targets in Russia, Turkey, Germany, Vietnam, and more. Hutchins, a researcher from cybersecurity firm Kryptos Logic, inadvertently stopped WannaCry in its tracks by registering a specific website domain included in the malware's code and saved the NHS from cyber hackers.
Over 300,000 computers were infected by the WannaCry ransomware globally, which had encrypted people’s data on infected computers. Users would have to pay a ransom of $300 bitcoins to get back the data. Many people were locked out of their computers, and could not retrieve important data.
The cyber genius has been blogging under the pseudonym 'MalwareTech' and has a twitter handle as well but remained unknown till he became the hero of WannaCry attack. Thereafter, he gave several interviews to the media as well.
According to the FBI, Hutchins created the Kronos Malware which was used to hack banking systems in Canada and Europe. The indictment papers put Hutchins as a co-accused in the case, but the other person’s name has been redacted from the document.
Hutchins owned Lamborghinis, rented £5m mansion and fired machine guns.