Take the RIG Pill: Down the Rabbit Hole

Executive Summary

Talos is monitoring the big notorious Exploit Kits(EK) on an ongoing basis. Since Angler disappeared a few month ago, RIG is one EK which seems to be trying to fill the gap Angler has left. We see an ongoing development on RIG. This report gives more details about the complex infection process the adversaries behind RIG are using to infect their victims and how they attempt to bypass security software and devices.

The adversaries are leveraging Gates (e.g. EITest) to redirect the users to their Landing Page. This leads to a chain of redirects, before the victim finally gets on the landing page of the exploit kit. They are using different methods and stages to deliver the malware files. The same malware file often gets written and executed multiple times on the victim’s PC. If one method doesn’t work or is blocked by an Anti-Malware solution, they have a couple of backup methods. All stages and methods are obfuscated, some more, some less.

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