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Going Nuclear: Inside the world's second worst exploit toolkit

Malware-as-a-service generates big bucks

Security researchers have lifted the lid on the Nuclear exploit kit, rated the second largest malware-as-a-service toolkit in the world.

Nuclear has generated 1.8 million attacks worth $12m in revenue in one month alone, chiefly through slinging the infamous Locky ransomware. The estimated monthly revenue for the developers of Nuclear is $100,000, according to Check Point.

The toolkit is second only behind the infamous Angler exploit kit as a means to run drive-by attacks from hacker-controlled websites.

Compromised sites, sometimes otherwise-legitimate internet hangouts, harbor malicious code that pushes malware onto the Windows PCs of visiting surfers using Flash-based exploits and the like.

Check Point's researchers explain how the developers of Nuclear exploit kit rent it to attackers, and analyze the source code of Nuclear and the source code of every exploit that uses the kit. More details can be found in a blog post here. ®

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