FBI Arrests Researcher Who Found 'Kill-Switch' to Stop Wannacry Ransomware
The 22-year-old British security researcher who gained fame for discovering the "kill switch" that stopped the outbreak of the WannaCry ransomware—has been reportedly arrested in the United States after attending the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas.Marcus Hutchins, operates under the alias MalwareTech on Twitter, was detained by the FBI in the state of Nevada, a friend of Hutchins confirmed Motherboard.
At the time of writing, it is unclear why the Internet's 'accidental hero' has been detained by the FBI, but his arrest has sparked an endless debate in the security community.
Hutchins became famous over two months ago when the WannaCry ransomware began hitting businesses, organisations and individuals across the world, and he accidentally halted its global spread by registering a domain name hidden in the malware.
hxxp://www[.]iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea[.]com
The domain as mentioned above was responsible for keeping WannaCry ransomware propagating and spreading like a worm, and if the connection to this domain fails, the SMB worm proceeds to infect the system.
Fortunately, Hutchins registered this domain in question and created a sinkhole–tactic researchers use to redirect traffic from the infected machines to a self-controlled system.
Hutchins is quite active on Twitter, but from last 24 hours, we have not seen any tweet from his account, which suggests the reports are likely correct.
Just today, in a separate news we reported that the hackers behind WannaCry cashed out over $140,000 from their Bitcoins wallets, where victims were instructed to send ransom payments.
Since both news came on the same day, some people have started making conspiracy theories about the involvement of both the events, though nothing is clear at this moment.
WannaCry was really bad, as the nasty ransomware forced the British NHS (National Health Service) to shut down hospitals and doctor's surgeries, and infected a Spanish telecommunications company and Russian mobile operator, among much more.
Even a month after its outbreak, the WannaCry ransomware was found infecting systems at Honda Motor Company, forcing its Japan-based factory to shut down its production, and 55 speed and traffic light cameras in Victoria, Australia.
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