The evolution of commercial malware development kits and colour-by-numbers custom malware

Abstract

In the last half-decade, the motivations behind malware creation have changed considerably. What was once attributed to solitary attention-driven individuals working from their bedroom-office has now evolved into an international collective of professionally trained authors motivated by high profit. These financially driven conglomerates offer all manner of business models — buying, leasing, subscription and even pay-as-you-go malware financial schemes — all of which are competitively priced to attract prospective patrons.