Yet Another Web Malware Exploitation Kit in the Wild

With business-minded malicious attackers embracing basic marketing practices like branding, it is becoming increasingly harder, if not pointless to keep track of all XYZ-Packs currently in circulation. How come? Due to their open source nature allowing modifications, claiming copyright over the modified and re-branded kit, the source code of core web malware exploitation kits continue representing the foundation source code for each and every newly released kit.

In fact, the practice is becoming so evident, that anecdotal evidence in the form of monitoring ongoing communications between sellers and buyers reveals actual attempts of intellectual property enforcement in the form of  exchange of flames between an author of a original kit, and a newly born author who seems to have copied over 80% of his source code, changed the layout, re-branded it, added several more exploits and started pitching it as the most exclusive kit there is available in the underground marketplace.

What's new about this particular kit anyway? Changed iframe and js obfuscation techniques, doesn't require MySQL to run, with several modified Adobe Acrobat and Flash exploits - all patched and publicly obtainable. This is precisely where the marketing pitch ends for the majority of malware kits released during the last quarter.

As always, there are noticable exceptions to the common wisdom that time-to-underground market isn't allowing them to innovate, but thankfully, these exceptions aren't yet going mainstream. What is going to change in the upcoming 2009? Web malware exploitation kits are slowly maturing into multi-user cybercrime platforms, where traffic management coming from the SQL injected or malware embedded sites is automatically exploited with access to the infected hosts or to the traffic volume in general offered for sale under a flat rate, or on a volume basis.

Converging traffic management with drive-by exploitation and offering the output for sale, all from a single web interface, is precisely what malicious economies of scale is all about.

Related posts:
Cybercriminals release Christmas themed web malware exploitation kit
New Web Malware Exploitation Kit in the Wild
Modified Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Performance Boost 
Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Carding Layout
Web Based Malware Emphasizes on Anti-Debugging Features
Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kit Comes with Disclaimer
Web Based Malware Eradicates Rootkits and Competing Malware
Two Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits in the Wild
Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kits are Faddish
Web Based Botnet Command and Control Kit 2.0
BlackEnergy DDoS Bot Web Based
A New DDoS Malware Kit in the Wild
The Small Pack Web Malware Exploitation Kit
The Nuclear Grabber Kit
The Apophis Kit
Nuclear Malware Kit
The Random JS Malware Exploitation Kit
Metaphisher Malware Kit Spotted in the Wild