The man hailed as a hero for discovering the WannaCry ransomware kill switch has been arrested in connection with another malware program.
UK researcher Marcus Hutchins was credited with identifying how to disable WannaCry and potentially saving millions of organisations from the crippling ransomware attack.
Now Hutchins has been arrested at Las Vegas airport, allegedly for creating, or helping to create, the Kronos banking Trojan.
The indictment, filed in a US federal court, states that Hutchins created the Kronos malware that can steal login information and other financial data from online banking sites.
An unnamed accomplice is supposed to have worked with Hutchins to sell the program for $3 000.00 on an Internet forum.
According to a Justice Department statement, a federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment against Hutchins last month after a two-year investigation.
The Kronos malware is built to “harvest and transfer” user names and passwords from banking websites from an infected computer. It is apparently configured to strike banking systems in a number of countries, including Canada, Germany, Poland, France and the UK.
Hutchins was arrested after spending a week attending the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences, and was en route back to his home in the UK.
