Marcus Hutchins a.k.a as MalwareTech in the Twitter social networking environment might be a hero when it came to stopping the dreadful WannaCry crypto-virus. The gratitude does not extend to other criminal activity that the researcher might have been involved in. We guess it is easy to start using powers for evil. Or is this just a misunderstanding?
Two days ago, Hutchins had been arrested in Las Vegas for a cybercrime of co-working with another person in the process of generating/transmitting Kronos banking Trojan. The young analyst is blamed for a well-known malware which had been determined to display rogue versions of online banking portals. These domains contained login sections that, if filled, would send the entered details to hackers and help them access those accounts and extract money.
Some background information about Kronos banking Trojan
Infection has been around for years now, starting from summer of 2014. There appears to be two figures that have been involved in creating and promoting Kronos: one of them allegedly is MalwareTech. He could have played a role of being the brains of the operation as Hutchins is believed to be the one who generated Kronos malware. His partner in crime is still unidentified, but it is assumed that he/she attempted to sell Trojan in underground forums.
However, people who had worked or followed the research that MalwareTech had done are skeptical towards the made accusations. They believe that investigators made a mistake and arrested the wrong person. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Therefore, it would not be fair to state that Marcus Hutchins definitely belongs to the duo that came up with the idea of Kronos Trojan.
The situation gets even more tricky since FBI has not made any statements, suggesting the proof that could implicate MalwareTech. Some people guess that the other person might have ratted its companion to receive better conditions for its trial and sentence. Other stress out the lack of arguments to arrest Marcus Hutchins. Without knowing the actual evidence that are against the 23-year-old researchers, it is impossible to determine that whether he is guilty or innocent.
Of course, many people should also remember the fact that this researcher was the one who discovered a cure for WannaCry and prevented it from disrupting anymore devices. This action also can trigger doubts as a cybercriminals show vert little interest in helping online communities (if we do not count the ethical hackers). While there still are many unanswered questions about this arrest and Kronos Trojan, we hope you won’t judge before any official and convincing information is released. At the moment, some people people believe that FBI is just fishing around.
Source: time.com.
