​Cash reward will be divided between charities and educational resources for IT security students.

The man who discovered and stopped last week’s global cyber attack is to give his $10,000 reward to charity.

Marcus Hutchins, a 22 year old who IT worker from Devon, neutralisid the threat from cyber terrorist group WannaCry on Friday night by finding a website address within the virus's code that acted as a "killswitch".

Registering the domain halted the spread of the attack, potentially saving thousands of computers.

Hutchins revealed he had been awarded the bounty by HackerOne, a group that rewards ethical hackers for finding software flaws.

He said he would divide the money between charities and educational resources for IT security students.

He said he wasn't interested in receiving money himself, or the newfound fame that has greeted him.

"They got in touch to offer the bounty, which I decided to claim and donate to multiple charities, as well as save a bit for helping people looking to get into security have access to educational resources," he said.

He plans to hold a vote on what charities should receive the money.

HackerOne, a network of hackers, operates so-called bug bounty programmes in which computer experts are rewarded by technology companies for discovering security flaws before criminals do. It awarded $7m last year and its best-paid hacker has earned $600,000 in two years.

The company had offered the reward saying: "Thank you for your active research into this malware and for making the internet safer!"