Meet the ‘accidental hero’ who saved the world from the ransomware cyber-attack

A cyber security researcher has reportedly discovered a ‘kill switch’ that can prevent the spread of the WannaCry ransomware, which is creating chaos worldwide. A cyber security researcher

has reportedly discovered a ‘kill switch’ that can prevent the spread of the WannaCry ransomware, which is creating chaos worldwide. The researcher, tweeting as @MalwareTechBlog stated that

the discovery was accidental but, registering a domain name used by the malware stops it from spreading. According to reports, @MalwareTechBlog told AFP in a private message on Twitter,

“Essentially they relied on a domain not being registered and by registering it, we stopped their malware spreading.” However, it has also been added that the crisis isn’t over, and the

hackers can always change the code and try again. Recently, a global cyber-attack leveraging hacking tools believed to have been developed by the US National Security Agency infected tens of

thousands of computers in nearly 100 countries, disrupting Britain's health system and global shipper FedEx. Cyber extortionists tricked victims into opening malicious malware

attachments to spam emails that appeared to contain invoices, job offers, security warnings and other legitimate files. The ransomware encrypted data on the computers, demanding payments of

$300 to $600 to restore access. Security researchers said they observed some victims paying via the digital currency bitcoin, though they did not know what percent had given in to the

extortionists. Researchers with security software maker Avast said they had observed 57,000 infections in 99 countries, with Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan the top targets. "I will confess

that I was unaware registering the domain would stop the malware until after I registered it, so initially it was accidental," @MalwareTechBlog tweeted. Private security firms

identified the ransomware as a new variant of "WannaCry" that had the ability to automatically spread across large networks by exploiting a known bug in Microsoft's Windows

operating system. The hackers, who have not come forward to claim responsibility or otherwise been identified, likely made it a "worm", or self-spreading malware, by exploiting a

piece of NSA code known as "Eternal Blue" that was released last month by a group known as the Shadow Brokers, researchers with several private cyber security firms said. The

Shadow Brokers released Eternal Blue as part of a trove of hacking tools that they said belonged to the US spy agency.