Microsoft Security Blog: What You Should Know About Drive-By Download Attacks - Part 1

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By Tim Rains
8 Dec 2011

My last blog post focused on Java exploits and the need to keep all software up to date. Since writing that article I have received some questions from customers asking for more details on how attackers are using such vulnerabilities to compromise systems. Subsequently, this two-part blog post is dedicated to the topic of drive-by download attacks – a popular tactic among attackers for taking advantage of software that has not been kept up to date. For these articles, I’m drawing on the data and analysis we published in various volumes of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report. There are several variations of drive-by download attacks: exploits are often distributed through Web pages, as well as e-mail and instant messaging (IM) services. I will focus on one variation, Web pages, to keep these articles shorter than it would be otherwise.

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