The blackhole exploit kit developer “Paunch” has been sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Moscow court. The blackhole exploit kit was provided as a cybercrime service, meaning that anyone could hire the blackhole exploit kit. The blackhole EK was used to steal financial data from small to mid-sized businesses.
Brian Krebs explained on his blog, that the creator of the blackhole exploit kit was arrested in 2013;
In October 2013, the then 27-year-old Fedotov was arrested along with an entire team of other cybercriminals who worked to sell, develop and profit from Blackhole.
The Russian Security company “Group-IB” explained that Dmitry “Paunch” Fedotov was earning 50000 dollars each month – and that he had around 1000 customers.
Brain Krebs stated that the kit was being provided as a service for just 500 to 700 dollars each month. Dmitry “Paunch” Fedotov would also provide you extra service if the amount of “50 dollars” was paid extra.
The price of renting the kit ran from $500 to $700 each month. For an extra $50 a month, Paunch also rented customers “crypting” services; cryptors are designed to obfuscate malicious software so that it remains undetectable by antivirus software.