Read on Twitter
At 22, Marcus Hutchins single-handedly saved the internet. From a bedroom in his parents’ house, Hutchins stopped WannaCry, a self-spreading digital worm that, at the time, was the worst cyberattack the world had ever seen 1/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Hutchins went from an anonymous cybersecurity blogger to an international hero instantaneously. Three months later, he was showered with praise at Defcon, a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Then, while waiting for his flight home, Hutchins was arrested 2/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Initially, his FBI interrogators struck a friendly tone. Hutchins even briefly thought they might just be interested in his WannaCry work. Then, they asked about a program called Kronos.
Hutchins realized would not be going home anytime soon 3/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Hutchins realized would not be going home anytime soon 3/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Growing up on a remote English cattle farm, Hutchins had a preternatural facility with computers. At 13, he built his own PC. A year later, he coded his first piece of malware. By 15, he was secretly running a botnet of more than 8,000 computers 4/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
At first, writing malware was just a way for Hutchins to flex his computing skills on hacker forums. But soon those skills drew the attention of more hardened professionals: Including one who went by the pseudonym Vinny 5/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Vinny started paying Hutchins to create hacking software he could sell online. Hutchins never asked who was buying it; he was mostly pleased his work was desired and appreciated.
But he would soon be asked to cross the lines of his own murky morality 6/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
But he would soon be asked to cross the lines of his own murky morality 6/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Vinny accumulated enough leverage over Hutchins to persuade the teenager to create a banking trojan—malware he& #39;d resisted building. In doing so, Hutchins added one more link to a years-long chain of bad decisions.
The software& #39;s name? Kronos 7/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
The software& #39;s name? Kronos 7/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Three years later, Hutchins& #39; premonition came true—just as he was coming into his own as one of the most celebrated white hat hackers in the world.
This is the untold story of Marcus Hutchins: His descent, recovery, and reckoning 8/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
This is the untold story of Marcus Hutchins: His descent, recovery, and reckoning 8/ https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK ">https://wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK&q...
Don’t miss another story from WIRED. Sign up for our daily newsletter and get all of our stories delivered right to you. Sign up here: https://wired.trib.al/3dQAuNG ">https://wired.trib.al/3dQAuNG&q...
