Sundown EK: You Better Take Care

This post was authored by Nick Biasini

Over the last six months the exploit kit landscape has seen some major changes. These changes began with Nuclear ceasing operations in April/May and arrests in Russia coinciding with the end of Angler in June. Recently, Neutrino has been added to the list of exploit kits that have stopped being actively used in 2016. What remains is a group of smaller exploit kits vying for pole position in an industry that continues to generate millions of dollars from payloads such as ransomware and banking trojans.

It’s now time to turn to another exploit kit that is active on the landscape, Sundown. The Sundown exploit kit has previously been part of a second tier of exploit kits that includes Magnitude and Sweet Orange. These kits successfully compromise users, but typically are not accompanied with the advanced techniques and wide-spread use of the other major exploit kits. It’s not to say these kits aren’t significant threats, but from a potential victim perspective they historically do not have the reach associated with other EKs from before such as Angler or RIG.