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The Sinkhole That Saved the Internet

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday July 14 2019, @07:37PM   
from the lucky-pothole dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

The sinkhole that saved the internet

It was late afternoon on May 12, 2017. Two exhausted security researchers could barely unpack the events of what had just happened.

Marcus Hutchins and Jamie Hankins, who were working from their homes in the U.K. for Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company Kryptos Logic, had just stopped a global cyberattack dead in its tracks. Hours earlier, WannaCry ransomware began to spread like wildfire, encrypting systems and crippling businesses and transport hubs across Europe. It was the first time in a decade a computer worm began attacking computers on a massive scale. The U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS) was one of the biggest organizations hit, forcing doctors to turn patients away and emergency rooms to close.

Hours after the disruption began to break on broadcast news networks, Hutchins — who at the time was only known by his online handle @MalwareTech — became an “accidental hero” for inadvertently stopping the cyberattack by registering a web domain found in the malware’s code.

The internet, still reeling from the damage, had gotten off lightly. The two researchers, at the time both in their early 20s, had saved the internet from a powerful nation-state attack launched by an enemy using hacking tools developed by the West.

But the attack was far from over.

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Original Submission

• Kinda scary... Kinda scary... (Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Monday July 15 2019, @04:03AM (1 child)

  by Mykl (1112) on Monday July 15 2019, @04:03AM (#867073)

  ...to think that there are still millions of infected WannaCry devices out there ready to 'explode' as soon as a network connection dies.

  When I think of the original of the exploit (NSA tools), it does force me to look at Government attempts to create backdoors into apps (with the assurance that they will be the only ones to hold the key) with even more scepticism. Any tool or exploit created or owned by the government will eventually find its way out into the open, often with devastating consequences.

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• Re:Kinda scary... (Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:48PM

  by Lester (6231) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:48PM (#867548) Journal

  will eventually find its way out into the open,

  Sad, now everybody can do what we do

  often with devastating consequences.

  Devasting for who?

  Parent