A cyberattack thwarted and we have Cornwall to thank!
Have you always chuckled at the British surfer too? Do you picture him, with reddish hair and pale skin, floundering on an egg-shaped surfboard in the windswept Corn Wall? His face ruddy from the ice-cold water and bangers and mash? His wax and even shade of brown from the countryside’s loamy soil?
Do you you picture him like Dusty Payne without skill?
Well then you too are in for a big surprise. The world owes its peace, this morning, to a fine British surfer!
The anonymous 22 year-old who maybe lives in Cornwall discovered some new computer virus before it could get fully activated and thwarted its growth hereby allowing you to read your beloved BeachGrit this morning. Let’s learn more!
The researcher, who identified himself only as MalwareTech, is a 22-year-old from south-west England who works for Kryptos logic, an LA-based threat intelligence company.
“I was out having lunch with a friend and got back about 3pm and saw an influx of news articles about the NHS and various UK organisations being hit, I had a bit of a look into that and then I found a sample of the malware behind it, and saw that it was connecting out to a specific domain, which was not registered. So I picked it up not knowing what it did at the time.”
Etc. Etc.
He said he got his first job out of school without any real qualifications, having skipped university to start up a tech blog, write software and surf.
“It’s always been a hobby to me, I’m self-taught. I ended up getting a job out of my first botnet tracker, which the company I now work for saw and contacted me about, asking if I wanted a job. I’ve been working there a year and two months now.”
But the dark knight of the dark web still lives at home with his parents, which he joked was “so stereotypical”. His mum, he said, was aware of what had happened and was excited, but his dad hadn’t been home yet. “I’m sure my mother will inform him,” he said.
“It’s not going to be a lifestyle change, it’s just a five-minutes of fame sort of thing. It is quite crazy, I’ve not been able to check into my Twitter feed all day because it’s just been going too fast to read. Every time I refresh it it’s another 99 notifications.”
He is now more famous than Dusty Payne.
All hail the British surfer!
