Hacking And Exploit Site Milw0rm Closes Its Doors

Milw0rm is by far one of the best-known public sites to get the latest proof-of-concept exploit code. Or at least it was until it closed its doors today. The closing comes as a shock to the security community given that milw0rm had become a valuable resource for proof-of-concept and weaponized exploit code, demonstration videos, and papers on all areas of information security.Str0ke, the owner and maintainer of milw0rm, posted a the following to the site before it went offline (Google cache link). "Well, this is my goodbye header for milw0rm. I wish I had the time I did in the past to post exploits, I just don't :(. For the past 3 months I have actually done a pretty crappy job of getting peoples work out fast enough to be proud of, 0 to 72 hours (taking off weekends) isn't fair to the authors on this site. I appreciate and thank everyone for their support in the past. Be safe, /str0ke"

Once posted, news of the possible shutdown rippled through the community over mailing lists, forums, and Twitter. While there were many of us security professionals that used milw0rm for doing good, the fact that it was used for bad is not lost on us. One of the more amusing comments from Twitter poked fun at the fact that the site was often used by script kiddies.

From @davoj: "RIP milw0rm... it was if a million script kiddies cried out and were suddenly silenced"

Further proof of Milw0rm's popularity is the inclusion of its exploit archive on the highly popular and widely used pen-testing CD, BackTrack. There is even an "update-milw0rm" script that downloads the latest bundle of exploits available from the milw0rm site, which obviously doesn't work anymore.

So, who's going to take the reins from str0ke? It's not known at this time, but str0ke did say on Twitter that "I have talked with a few friends and I'll be handing the site over so a group of people can add exploits / other things to the site. Hopefully it will be a new good start."

I'm glad that there are people stepping up to help out because it's a testament to the strength and generosity of the security community, but a site like milw0rm definitely presents us with a Catch-22. It was great for those of us that used it for good, but it also caused us plenty of headaches when it was used against us.

Whatever happens, many thanks to str0ke for the hard work over the years and good luck!

John H. Sawyer is a senior security engineer on the IT Security Team at the University of Florida. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are his own and do not represent the views and opinions of the UF IT Security Team or the University of Florida. When John's not fighting flaming, malware-infested machines or performing autopsies on blitzed boxes, he can usually be found hanging with his family, bouncing a baby on one knee and balancing a laptop on the other. Special to Dark Reading.