Tag Archives: Paunch

‘Blackhole’ Exploit Kit Author Gets 7 Years

April 14, 2016
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A Moscow court this week convicted and sentenced seven hackers for breaking into countless online bank accounts — including “Paunch,” the nickname used by the author of the infamous “Blackhole” exploit kit. Once an extremely popular crimeware-as-a-service offering, Blackhole was for several years responsible for a large percentage of malware infections and stolen banking credentials, and likely contributed to tens of millions of dollars stolen from small to mid-sized businesses over several years.

The Darkode Cybercrime Forum, Up Close

July 15, 2015
68 Comments

By now, many of you loyal KrebsOnSecurity readers have seen stories in the mainstream press about the coordinated global law enforcement takedown of Darkode[dot]me, an English-language cybercrime forum that served as a breeding ground for botnets, malware and just about every other form of virtual badness. This post is an attempt to distill several years’ worth of lurking on this forum into a narrative that hopefully sheds light on the individuals apprehended in this sting and the cybercrime forum scene in general.

Who Is Paunch?

December 9, 2013
41 Comments

Last week, the world got the first glimpses of a man Russian authorities have accused of being “Paunch,” a computer crime kingpin whose “Blackhole” crimeware package has fueled an explosion of cybercrime over the past several years. So far, few details about the 27-year-old defendant have been released, save for some pictures of a portly lad and a list of his alleged transgressions. Today’s post follows a few clues from recent media coverage that all point to one very likely identity for this young man.

Meet Paunch: The Accused Author of the BlackHole Exploit Kit

December 6, 2013
74 Comments

In early October, news leaked out of Russia that authorities there had arrested and charged the malware kingpin known as “Paunch,” the alleged creator and distributor of the Blackhole exploit kit. Today, Russian police and computer security experts released additional details about this individual, revealing a much more vivid picture of the cybercrime underworld today.

Personalized Exploit Kit Targets Researchers

August 15, 2013
11 Comments

As documented time and again on this blog, cybercrooks are often sloppy or lazy enough to leave behind important clues about who and where they are. But from time to time, cheeky crooks will dream up a trap designed to look like they’re being sloppy when in fact they’re trying to trick security researchers into being sloppy and infecting their computers with malware.

Crimeware Author Funds Exploit Buying Spree

January 7, 2013
19 Comments

The author of Blackhole, an exploit kit that booby-traps hacked Web sites to serve malware, has done so well for himself renting his creation to miscreants that the software has emerged as perhaps the most notorious and ubiquitous crimeware product in the Underweb. Recently, however, the author has begun buying up custom exploits to bundle into a far more closely-held and expensive exploit pack, one that appears to be fueling a wave of increasingly destructive online extortion schemes.

Attackers Pounce on Zero-Day Java Exploit

August 27, 2012
70 Comments

Attackers have seized upon a previously unknown security hole in Oracle’s ubiquitous Java software to break into vulnerable systems. So far, the attacks exploiting this weakness have been targeted and not widespread, but it appears that the exploit code is now public and is being folded into more widely-available attack tools such as Metasploit and exploit kits like BlackHole.