Feds outline technical evidence in case against WannaCry researcher

A court document released Thursday outlined the physical evidence the United States plans to use against cybersecurity researcher and accused criminal malware developer Marcus Hutchins. 

Hutchins, a British citizen well known for critical work stopping the WannaCry malware that ravaged through at least 300,000 systems in the span of a week, is accused of developing malware used to steal banking passwords years earlier. 

The document shows the federal court in Wisconsin handling the trial has ruled the physical evidence too complex to reasonably analyze at a pace consistent with speedy trial laws. 

It contains a list of evidence both sides will need to weigh, including 150 pages of online chats over the Jabber network, three CDs of audio recordings, between three and four samples of the Kronos malware Hutchins is accused of creating, business records from Apple, Google and Yahoo, and a “search warrant executed on a third party which may contain some privileged information.”

{mosads}

Prosecutors have not released much information about their evidence in the Hutchins case.

Many in the cybersecurity research community have worried that the arrest may be based on standard research practices, like publishing a “proof of concept” of a new kind of malware or posturing in hacker forums to coax malware designers to share new malware samples.

Some have threatened to stop working with the government or publishing research for fear they, too, might be at risk. 

The court and attorneys will meet October 13 to determine a new timeline for the trial.