A brand new RIG campaign has been registered over the past few days . According to Heimdal Security , it ’ s been targeting the old versions of popular applications such as Internet Explorer , Microsoft Edge , or Flash , in order to distribute the Cerber ransomware . The campaign involves a number of malicious domains to launch drive-by attacks against unsuspecting visitors and relies on their failure to update applications regularly . Nevertheless , according to Heimdal Security , just the outdated versions of Internet Explorer , Silverlight , Flash Player , and Microsoft Edge are targeted . Heimdal Security also claims Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that RIG attempts to exploit one of 8 vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer , Silverlight , Flash Player , and Microsoft Edge , including CVE-2015-8651 ( CVSS Score : 9.1 ) , CVE-2015-5122 ( CVSS Score : 10 , affects nearly 100 Flash versions ) , CVE-2016-4117 ( CVSS Score : 10 ) , CVE-2016-1019 ( CVSS Score : 10 ) , CVE-2016-7200 and CVE-2016-7201 ( both CVSS Score : 7.6 , affecting Microsoft Edge ) , CVE-2016-3298 ( CVSS Score : 3.6 , affects Internet Explorer versions 9 , 10 , 11 ) , and CVE-2016-0034 ( CVSS Score : 9.3 ) . After infecting the victim ’ s PC , the exploit kit continues downloading and installing the Cerber ransomware . This is one of the most dangerous infections developed to encrypt user ’ s files and demand a ransom Attack.Ransom for the decryption key . According to security researchers , the RIG exploit kit version which was noticed in this campaign is the Empire Pack version ( RIG-E ) , while the abused domains are part of the so-called Pseudo-Darkleech gateway . Last month , the gate was registered dropping Cerber as well . In the past , it was used to distribute some other types of ransomware . The Heimdal Security experts state that the only thing which users must do to ensure increased protection is to keep their software updated at all times . Long said to be essential to good security , applying security updates in a timely manner is at the heart of prevention when it comes to exploit kit attacks . “ As you can see , cybercriminals often use vulnerabilities already patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability by the software developer in their attacks , because they know that most users fail to apply updates when they ’ re released . In spite of the wave of attacks , many Internet users still choose to ignore updates , but we hope that alerts such as this one will change their mind and make them more aware of the key security layer that updates represent , ” the Heimdal Security evangelist Andra Zaharia states