Marcus Hutchins, right, rose to fame after helping to stop the WannaCry ransomware attack. | Image: Joshua Lott/AFP via Getty Images
When he was just 22, Marcus Hutchins rose to fame by single-handedly stopping the spread of WannaCry, a ransomware attack that hit hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide and effectively shut down over a dozen UK hospitals. But within months of stopping it, Hutchins was in police custody. His extraordinary story is the subject of a lengthy new feature in Wired, and it’s absolutely worth a read in its entirety.
Hutchins was arrested because of his teenage work on code that would end up being used in banking trojan software. But so much time had passed, that when he was finally questioned by officers he initially thought they just wanted to learn about his work on WannaCry.
For the next few minutes, the agents struck a friendly tone,…