The Blackhole exploit kit was, as of 2012, the most prevalent web threat, where 29% of all web threats detected by Sophos and 91% by AVG are due to this exploit kit.
[2] According to Trend Micro the majority of infections due to this exploit kit were done in a series of high volume spam runs.
[4] Blackhole exploit kit was released on "Malwox", an underground Russian hacking forum.
[6] Dmitry "Paunch" Fedotov was sentenced to seven years in a Russian penal colony on April 12, 2016.
[7] A typical defensive posture against this and other advanced malware includes, at a minimum, each of the following: