The criminal developers behind the Neutrino Exploit Kit have taken full advantage of the recent takedown of Angler and Nuclear by more than doubling their monthly rental fee.
Gadi Naveh, Check Point's threat prevention evangelist, blogged that the new charge for this infrastructure is now in the $7,000 per month range, which is close to the usual cost to rent the Nuclear Exploit for the same period of time. Nuclear dropped out of site in April after Check Point posted a detailed look at the EK, while Angler seemingly stopped being used around June 7.
The reason such exorbitant amounts are being charged for these top-flight EKs is that only these types can evade the layered defenses now being fielded by their intended victims, Naveh said.
“Exploits kits need to be able to evade multiple layers of security, making it much harder for a lone hacker to create a successful attack infrastructure on his own,” he said, adding that they are well worth the cost as advanced EKs have “stunning” success rates at delivering ransomware.
