national-health – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Marcus Hutchins, the 23-year-old security researcher who is credited with halting the spread of the WannaCry malware program earlier this year has been arrested by the FBI while attending the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas, Motherboard reports . This is a developing story and details remain scarce as of the publication of this post, however The Telegraph states that “UK law enforcement and security agencies confirmed a British citizen has been arrested” as part of an ongoing FBI investigation. I can confirm @MalwareTechBlog was detained yesterday and FBI/US Marshalls won’t tell me where he is. https://t.co/lV5SxZjsRi — Andrew Mabbitt (@MabbsSec) August 3, 2017 Hutchins was hailed as a hero in May when he found the killswitch to the WannaCry virus, a malware program that had infected vulnerable targets across Europe and Asia, including the UK’s National Health Service and a Spanish telecommunications company. Hutchins, who works for Kryptos Logic, halted the virus’ spread by registering a web domain that the program’s code relied on. Motherboard reports that as of early Thursday morning Hutchins was being held in the Henderson Detention Center in Nevada, however he was later moved to an undisclosed location. “I’ve spoken to the US Marshals again and they say they have no record of Marcus being in the system. At this point we’ve been trying to get in contact with Marcus for 18 hours and nobody knows where he’s been taken, ” an unnamed friend of Hutchins told Motherboard . “We still don’t know why Marcus has been arrested and now we have no idea where in the US he’s been taken to and we’re extremely concerned for his welfare.” Engadget has reached out to Kryptos Logic and the FBI for comment. This story will be updated as they reply. Update (2:29 pm EDT): Hutchins has reportedly been located and is being held at the FBI’s Las Vegas field office. Finally located @MalwareTechBlog , he’s in the Las Vegas FBI field office. Can anyone provide legal representation? — Andrew Mabbitt (@MabbsSec) August 3, 2017 Update: (2:45 pm EDT) : The Department of Justice has just announced that Hutchins is in custody not for his role in the Wannary event but for “his role in creating and distributing the Kronos banking Trojan.” According to the DoJ, between July 2014 and July 2015 Hutchins developed the malware and shared it online. Source: Telegraph UK , Motherboard

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FBI arrests UK security researcher who stopped WannaCry outbreak (Updated)

Doctors dream of having artificial blood always on hand, but the reality has usually been very different. While you can produce red blood cells in a lab, the current technique (which prods stem cells into action) only nets a small number of them at best. British researchers appear to have found the solution, however: they’ve developed a technique that can reliably produce an unlimited number of red blood cells. The trick is to create “immortalized” premature red blood cells that you can culture as much as you like, making mass production a real possibility. The biggest challenge is translating the technique to commercial manufacturing. Scientists have produced a few liters of blood in the lab, but there’s a big difference between that and the massive volumes needed to serve even a single hospital. Although the UK’s National Health Service is planning to trial artificial blood this year , this new technique won’t be involved. As it is, you wouldn’t likely see a wholesale switch to artificial blood even if this new method was ready for the real world. Any mass production is most likely to focus on people with rare blood types that can’t always count on donations. Even that limited effort could make a huge difference, mind you. Hospitals could always have a consistent supply of rare blood, so you wouldn’t have to worry about them running out in a life-or-death situation. Via: BBC , Digital Journal Source: University of Bristol , Nature

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Mass-produced artificial blood is now a real possibility