Pretty much every part of Magnitude has changed multiple times since then. However, it’s not the same exploit kit today that it was nine years ago. The Magnitude exploit kit, originally known as PopAds, has been around since at least 2012, which is an unusually long lifetime for an exploit kit. Note the drop after July 9th, which is when the attacker’s account at one of the abused ad networks got terminated. The daily amount of Avast users protected from Magnitude.
#Avast browser extension corruption windows
All the victim has to do is use a vulnerable version of Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, navigate to a page that hosts one of these ads and they will get the Magniber ransomware encrypting their computer.
#Avast browser extension corruption code
They contain code that exploits known vulnerabilities in order to give the attackers control over the victim’s computer.
The ads can mostly be found on adult websites, which makes this an example of so-called adult malvertising. The attackers behind the Magnitude Exploit Kit (or Magniťůdek as we like to call it) are exploiting this momentum by running malicious ads that are currently shown only to South Korean Internet Explorer users. While this law was finally dismantled in December 2020, Internet Explorer still has a lot of momentum in South Korea today. Ironically, these controls were originally meant to provide additional security. This was because of a law that seems very bizarre from today’s point of view: these websites were required to use ActiveX controls and were therefore only supported in Internet Explorer. An interesting example of this is South Korea, where until recently, users often had no choice but to use this browser if they wanted to visit a government or an e-commerce website. While the overall trend looks encouraging, there are still some countries where the decline in Internet Explorer usage is lagging behind. But seeing its browser market share continue to decline year after year at least gives me hope that one day it will be only a part of history. Unfortunately, I do not have the power to make Internet Explorer disappear. Not to mention all the headaches that web developers get when they are tasked with solving Internet Explorer compatibility issues. Switching to a different browser would most likely save countless people from getting hacked. If I could choose one computer program and erase it from existence, I would choose Internet Explorer.
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