Improved Fallout Exploit Kit – Now supports HTTPS and Flash exploit (CVE-2018-15982)

Fallout is an exploit kit (EK) first identified at the end of August 2018. It was first seen as a part of a malvertising campaign affecting users in Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Southern Europe, and others in the Asia Pacific.

Fallout was observed exploiting vulnerabilities CVE-2018-4878 and CVE-2018-8174 and distributing the Gandcrab ransomware to users in the Middle East.

After some gap, the fallout emerges with more exploits pack and more advanced in delivering the malwares. Fallout EK is distributed via malvertising chains (one of them we track under the name HookAds), especially through adult traffic.

The revised Fallout EK boasts several new features, including integration of the most recent Flash Player exploit. Security researchers identified that Fallout is now the second exploit kit to add CVE-2018-15982.

Fallout EK 2019 highlights:

• HTTPS support
• New landing page format
• New Flash exploit (CVE-2018-15982)
• Powershell to run payload

According to the underground advert promoting Fallout EK, “The code obfuscation and landing generation mechanism has been completely redesigned” and the exploit kit now comes with “Increased performance.” 

The same underground ad mentions the removal of the Internet Explorer CVE-2018-8373 RCE vulnerability because of its unstable flow rate.

Possibility of other payloads

The other payloads now disseminated via Fallout are Smokebot which was seen installing Azorult, Tinynuke+Azorult, Dridex, the ServHelper tunnel variant, and other malware strains not yet identified.

Indicators of Compromise

185.56.233[.]186 HookAds Campaign

51.15.35[.]154 Fallout EK

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