Hero White Hat Who Stopped WannaCry Spread Awarded $10K by HackerOne

[Bot]

The security researcher that put a stop to the spread of WannaCry last week was rewarded a $10,000 bug bounty by HackerOne.

The white hat hacker MalwareTech, who has since been identified after British tabloids doxxed him while he clearly wanted to keep his anonymity, managed to put a stop to the spread of this ransomware by registering a jibberish domain found deep within the malware's code, effectively triggering the kill switch.

Of course, ever since then other variants have popped up in the wild, some with kill switches of their own, others without. Nonetheless, the worst wave had been stopped. In total, around 220,000 computers have been infected in over 150 countries across the world. Even more such infections were blocked by security solutions.

HackerOne, the bug bounty platform used by dozens of companies and even the US Army, has decided it would be a good idea to reward MalwareTech for the great service he did the world.

The young white hat doesn't p... (read more)

Read more: Hero White Hat Who Stopped WannaCry Spread Awarded $10K by HackerOne

 

[RoboMan]

The international hero who bought a domain for 10 bucks and now is offered hundreds of jobs for his informatics hability. Really, congratulations, but it's really no big IT nerd...

 

[Winter Soldier]

Honor mention to all the other researchers who work on daily basis finding vulnerabilities and security problems, but they are not mentioned.

 

[tryfon]

I feel like he deserves all of the attention he is getting but I don't agree with him being offered multiple jobs...you can't just assume that he can do something like this consistently on a regular basis, especially with malware constantly evolving

 

[jamescv7]

Everyone in the field of cybersecurity where well deserved to be recognized, since the vulnerabilities and other security holes are primarily difficult to diagnose without proper tools.

Time come that it needs a special attention since the outbreak of ransomware occurred, remember that as a responsible malware researcher; you need to provide an urgent solution besides of typical advice.