Thread by @WIRED

At 22, Marcus Hutchins single-handedly saved the internet. From a bedroom in his parents’ house, Hutchins stopped WannaCry, a self-spreading digital worm that, at the time, was the worst cyberattack the world had ever seen 1/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Hutchins went from an anonymous cybersecurity blogger to an international hero instantaneously. Three months later, he was showered with praise at Defcon, a hacker conference in Las Vegas. Then, while waiting for his flight home, Hutchins was arrested 2/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Initially, his FBI interrogators struck a friendly tone. Hutchins even briefly thought they might just be interested in his WannaCry work. Then, they asked about a program called Kronos.

Hutchins realized would not be going home anytime soon 3/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Growing up on a remote English cattle farm, Hutchins had a preternatural facility with computers. At 13, he built his own PC. A year later, he coded his first piece of malware. By 15, he was secretly running a botnet of more than 8,000 computers 4/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

At first, writing malware was just a way for Hutchins to flex his computing skills on hacker forums. But soon those skills drew the attention of more hardened professionals: Including one who went by the pseudonym Vinny 5/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Vinny started paying Hutchins to create hacking software he could sell online. Hutchins never asked who was buying it; he was mostly pleased his work was desired and appreciated.

But he would soon be asked to cross the lines of his own murky morality 6/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Vinny accumulated enough leverage over Hutchins to persuade the teenager to create a banking trojan—malware he'd resisted building. In doing so, Hutchins added one more link to a years-long chain of bad decisions.

The software's name? Kronos 7/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

Three years later, Hutchins' premonition came true—just as he was coming into his own as one of the most celebrated white hat hackers in the world.

This is the untold story of Marcus Hutchins: His descent, recovery, and reckoning 8/ wired.trib.al/C2ufBFK

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