Marcus Hutchins’ arrest back in 2017 has stunned the computer security community. He acknowledged a statement that pleads guilty about his actions back in 2014 and 2015. 24-year old Hutchins is also known as MalwareTech stated that he regrets these actions and noted that these charges were imposed on him for his activity prior to his work in the security. He further added that he has been using the same skills for some years and at some point, he misused the same. He changed with age and started using the same skills for constructive purposes. He is going to devote all his time in keeping people safe from any kind of malware attacks. In 2017, Hutchins found a kill switch which is used in stemming the Wannacry Ransomware outbreak. This has prompted to so many news reports calling him a hero.
Accusations from the US Government:
Just some months later he was arrested after attending Def Con gathering of computer hackers in Las Vegas. The case has drawn a lot of attention from critics and many stated that the programmers often develop and work with certain types of computer code which can be used for malicious purposes. A federal indictment which was unsealed in Wisconsin accused Hutchins and another individual of crafting and distributing Kronos “banking Trojan.” This is a malicious software which can be used to steal the user names and passwords that are used on online banking sites. According to this indictment, Hutchins was responsible to distribute this hacking tool on the dark web. Hutchins may face a jail period of one year with a financial penalty. Source – TheGuardian
