WannaCry Kill Switch Hero Faces New Charges, But Code Evals Say Little
A fresh FBI charge against Marcus Hutchins has led to the Kronos banking trojan and the UPAS Kit backdoor being linked in the news over the past week.
However, a fresh analysis this week shows that, at least on a code level, the similarities (and differences) between the two are far from conclusive.
Hutchins (a.k.a. “MalwareTech”) came to public attention in May of last year after discovering a hardcoded “kill switch” for the WannaCry ransomware that stopped the infamous campaign in its tracks. He was hailed a hero by the security community, given that WannaCry was at the time wreaking havoc in more than 150 countries, impacting large and small companies alike and causing millions in damages worldwide.
