A member of the violent and cryptic Gank race, Mal De'wehr is a vagabond and an inadvertent career criminal. In the distant past, he was a rather promising cybernetic scientist serving a notorious squadron of Gank mercenaries. Possessing the drive of a true innovator, he outfitted his crew with highly modified and experimental equipment. But by far, his greatest scientific pursuit was a prototype brain implant that aimed to accelerate thought processes to supercomputer speeds. Backed into a corner when he failed to secure funding, he opted to install it into himself without proper testing, and a tragic oversight led to some... drawbacks. Mal's implant achieved what it had set out to do, but it had also overridden several ethical constraints and dramatically altered his personality as a result. Mal's comrades initially allowed him to continue working for them, but his erratic behavior quickly became an issue. It was around this time he earned the nickname "Malware" for his many misdeeds, standouts including unauthorized "efficiency tweaks" to the city power grid, and suites of cybernetic kitchenware being installed without consent during appointments. It all came to a head when glitchy equipment caused his band of mercs to fail a job from a big client. They immediately singled out Mal as the culprit, but couldn't prove he had a hand in it due to a lack of evidence. It was decided that Mal and his experiments were too wild and dangerous to keep around, but they could not prosecute him, nor could they remove the implant due to the unique design and custom install job. Thus, "Malware" was officially exiled from his home turf, although others would say he had been unleashed upon the rest of the galaxy.

Over time, Mal grew to embrace his moniker "Malware" and began wearing it like a badge of honor. Despite his misfortune, his ambition to create unrivaled equipment and gadgets truly has not changed. It's only... the way he goes about it that has. Generally his experiments are done with good intentions, but he has a habit of poking around where he doesn't belong, and will not ask for permission if he believes what he is doing is logical. In some situations, his meddling can save time, money, and lives. But the opposite can also be true, and the people that have been wronged tend to remember Mal's face for a considerably longer time. When strapped for credits, Mal often advertises his cybernetic side-gig, in which he sells, repairs, and installs cyberware for his clients. Although, his idea of "advertising" usually means aggressive manipulation and strongarming tactics... and his clients aren't always as keen on the idea as he is. This earns him enough to get by, but he knows better than to stay in one place for too long; too much combat gets in the way of good science after all. Mal roamed the galaxy this way for quite some time, before coming across a group that could actually tolerate him. Whether that's due to his "unique" personality or the sheer skill of his craft remains to be seen.

-Criminal 10: Mal's inherent mad scientist energy often leads to him breaking many, many laws. He will often make unsolicited modifications to property he does not own, digs too deeply into any databases he can get his hands on, and occasionally an experiment of his can backfire on the general public. His shady business on the side has also placed his head in many a crosshair. Many would like to see him behind bars, or worse.
-Obsession 5: In the pursuit of scientific progress, Mal treats almost every opportunity and interaction as an experiment he can possibly extract knowledge from. Whether tinkering with systems and machines that already work fine, hacking computers and droids merely to test new methods, or analyzing speech patterns and conversational branches in order to come up with a better marketing strategy, Mal will rarely be seen idle.
-Blackmail 5: An unknown entity has begun subjecting Mal to blackmail, holding key evidence from his past over his head in exchange for miscellaneous favors. In truth, Mal is unsure if the culprit could be a member of the merc squad or a third party with a vendetta, but out of fear that his former friends may decide exile was too light of a punishment, he regularly complies with the demands. These often include sabotage, network jamming, and stealing encrypted data.