The MPack toolkit has received a fair amount of media attention causing it to become one of the most desired Web browser exploit toolkits in the underground hacker scene. The original author was selling the MPack toolkit for $1000 USD, including a year of free support, and additional exploit modules for around $100 USD. Personally like the quote from the author when asked; Do you feel sorry for the people whose machines are infected by an attack? Well, I feel that we are just a factory producing ammunition. Now there is some logic for you!

However, considering the toolkit is written in a script language, it is easy to redistribute and modify. The toolkit is being sold by others now for as low as $150 USD. That is a whopping 85% off. Talk about clearance sale. The sellers likely didn't even need to buy it themselves, but rather probably found some of the multiple Web sites that did not employ standard Web site protections, allowing them to download the whole kit for free.

How it works is clearly outlined and Trend Micro does at least offer a method of discovery. What is odd with all the press about this organized criminal approach to fraud and thieft is governments, security firms, and anti virus companies of the world are doing very little. Now that the cat is out of the bag the variants will be haunting the world making the internet totally infested with poor ignorant users. As the list of variants grows each with its own twist on the base. What is at the core besides ignorance, is the social engineering part of this type of threat.

More details and articles on the topic. EWeek, Microsoft, BBC, Wikipedia