History of drive-by exploits

Question

I am interested in drive-by download attacks. For the moment, the oldest article I found on internet treating about it is this one.

Does someone know when first the expression drive-by download attack was used ?

And what was the first successful attack ever performed ?

@RoryAslop why is my question out-off topic ? am I asking about potatoes ? — idonothaveabrain, Aug 21 '14 at 09:27
"History of information security" is, at best, marginally on-topic here. — Mark, Aug 21 '14 at 19:10

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 24 '16 at 15:05

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Drive-by downloads are usually used in browser exploit-kits, as well as in malicious advertisements. I haven't found the origin of the term, but there are some articles. This paper, published in 2006, analyzes drive-by downloads from 2005.

A Symantec article from 2006 explains that the WMF vulnerability was popular.

HP DVLabs reports on web exploit-kits:

The trend started in 2006 with the release of WebAttacker, which is considered by many to be the first modern day Web exploit toolkit.

edited Jun 24 '16 at 15:05

Bob Ortiz

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answered Aug 20 '14 at 17:41

jonvon

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The german wikipedia has linked a source from 2004 but sadly itn't available any more. But you can read it on archive.org http://web.archive.org/web/20051110164059/http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/1160/22/1.html – Tokk Aug 20 '14 at 19:08

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 21 '14 at 00:35

The concept of drive-by downloads dates back at least to 1996, with the introduction of automatic downloading of ActiveX controls in Internet Explorer 3. I don't remember if it was called drive-by downloading at the time, or just "a really stupid idea".

History of drive-by exploits

2 Answers2