WannaCry made hundreds of lives of over 150 countries a disaster a couple of weeks ago. The ransomware attack spread so fast and infected many individuals and companies which put them in a devastated state. We educated you on how to shield your computer from this malware in an article published on an earlier day as well.
Who would have thought this global cyber attack will be stopped by a 22-year old from his small bedroom in his parent’s house! But yes, it’s true. Marcus Hutchins, whom I referenced earlier as a 22-year old was the mastermind behind the halt of the WannaCry ransomware.
However, Hutchins has claimed that the halting of the cyber attack was accidental. He has registered a garbled domain name hidden in the malware to track the virus, halting it unintentionally.
Appreciating Hutchins’ efforts, he has been rewarded with $10,000 which he has claimed that he would be donating to charity.
Hutchins has not done this for the money or the fame. “I plan on holding a vote to decide which charities will get the majority of the money. The rest will go to buying books/resources for people looking to get into infosec (information security) who can’t afford them.”, he wrote.
All in all, a good lesson to remember for all of us from both, the action and the remedy. The action made all of us vulnerable because timely patches and updates were not obtained by the users for the Windows operating system when it was released. Next the remedy; Hutchins proved that saving the world from the cyber attack or from anything down the line requires nothing but true passion towards what you do and the aim to see a positive outcome out of it.
