Malware charge upends cyber buff
Briton who stopped WannaCry attack is arrested in Las Vegas
— British comSAN FRANCIS CO puter security researcher Marcus Hutchins, who stopped the WannaCry ransomware attack in May, has been arrested in Las Vegas after attending a hacker conference.
Hutchins, 23, was being held for distributing banking malware known as Kronos between July 2014 and July 2015.
According to an indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin, Hutchins advertised the malware on Internet forums and sold it together with at least one other individual. He also offered services to help Kronos hide from antivirus software.
The name of the second individual was redacted in the indictment.
Motherboard had first reported that Hutchins was initially held at the Henderson Detention Center in Nevada early on Thursday and then moved to another facility.
The British consulate in Los Angeles was unable to confirm that Hutchins had been taken into custody, saying only that it was in touch with local authorities in Las Vegas following reports of a British man being arrested.
Hutchins had been attending back-to-back computer security conferences, Black Hat and DefCon, in Las Vegas. DefCon ended Sunday.