The British IT expert who thwarted global cyber attack still lives with his mum and dad

The British IT expert who has been branded a hero for slowing down the WannaCry global cyber attack has been revealed as a 22-year-old who still lives with his mum and dad.

The man, named in reports as Marcus Hutchins, thwarted the virus that stalled large parts of the NHS computer network on Friday.

Known as MalwareTech online, Hutchins still lives with his parents and younger brother and was hailed as an ‘accidental hero’ for discovering the virus’s kill switch.

The attack infected 200,000 machines across 150 countries and Mr Hutchins is now working alongside the National Cyber Security Centre, a part of GCHQ, to identify the hackers.

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In the past, he has tweeted images of his work station, complete with piles of computer equipment and stacks of pizza boxes.

He prevented hundreds of thousands of computers from being infected after he discovered that activating a specific web domain could disable the worm.

He located a reference to a web address in the attack’s software and purchased the site, thinking he could track the spread of the ransomware – but found he could actually halt its spread.

However, he fears his breakthrough could make him the subject of revenge attacks.

‘In future someone might want to retaliate – they could find my identity within seconds,’ he told Mail Online.

‘If they know where I live, they could really do anything.

‘A security blogger had people send heroin to his house and try to frame him after his identity was leaked and he even had death threats.

‘I’ve seen posts about the terrible things people have done to him and for me in future it could be the same things.’

Hutchins’ has regularly referred to his newfound fame on his twitter page, where he has also regularly updated followers with the progress of the cyber attack.

He predicted that Friday’s attack, which used ransomware to extort users’ for money in exchange for unlocking their data, could be followed on Monday by a ‘zombie’ attack, where malware that has infected a computer resurfaces after an apparent fix.