From: War on the Rocks
When the WannaCry ransomware created a global hospital crisis in 2017, locking emergency rooms and medical centers out of their systems, it was Marcus Hutchins, a British security researcher, (@MalwareTech) who discovered the kill switch that made it possible to enable those systems again. Months later, when NotPetya/Petya (a variant of WannaCry) again threatened global systems, Amit Serper of Cybereason (@0xAmit) discovered and published the workaround. The Dyn attack, made possible by the Mirai virus, which brought down internet traffic across Europe and America’s Eastern seaboard, was initially analyzed by the research group MalwareMustDie.
Who creates cyber security? Who creates the systems, tools, and technical knowledge necessary to defend U.S. civilians and their networks? As it turns out, much of the world’s front-line knowledge about vulnerabilities, threat patterns, and malicious code is derived from the efforts of the cyber defender community. This is a global association of security firms, independent researchers, and not-for-profit organizations. They are the foundation of cyber defense in the United States and much of the rest of the world.
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