May 13, 2017

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Joel Byers

On May 13, 2017, 22 year-old United Kingdoms blogger, Marcus Hutchins, halted the spread of a global ransomware cyber-attack by accidentally activating the “kill switch”. This malicious software was wreaking havoc on several organizations in the UK. On the day the news of the attack went live, Hutchins found a sample of the malware and saw that it was connecting back to a specific domain, which he determined wasn’t registered. So, as a lark, he registered it. That was the kill switch and the malware went dead. So, for $10, he stopped a global international cyber-attack. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Although to be honest, he had the skills and knowledge to be able to identify the information in the malware. So, its better to be lucky AND good.

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About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
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