| On May 12, 2017, the world was poised on the edge of a pandemic. This one was digital, not biological. In the space of a few hours that day, the WannaCry worm infected a huge swath of the British National Health Service, the German railway firm Deutsche Bahn, Sberbank in Russia, automakers Renault, Nissan, and Honda, universities in China, police departments in India, the Spanish telecom firm Telefónica, FedEx, and Boeing—and it was poised to keep spreading, ad infinitum, across the world’s computer networks. But in a scenario that is incredible to contemplate in the context of today’s pandemic, the WannaCry outbreak was stopped dead its tracks by a lone 22-year-old named Marcus Hutchins, working from his childhood bedroom in rural England. Hutchins quickly became one of the most celebrated figures in all of hackerdom, but just three months later, the unthinkable happened: He was arrested by the FBI for cybercrimes he had committed in his formative years. In WIRED’s June cover story, “The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins,” Andy Greenberg tells the full, untold story of Hutchins’ fall and rise. Based on six months of reporting, Greenberg’s 14,000-word portrait offers a rare, deep account of a hacker’s boyhood descent into crime and addiction, an inside look at the cybercriminal underworld, and the tale of a brilliant young man’s attempt to redefine himself. Plus, again, there’s the distinct pleasure of watching at least one kind of pandemic get pwned. |
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