Infostealers on the rise: the latest concern for organizational defenses

Infostealers are rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous tools in a hacker’s arsenal, particularly in environments where email remains a primary communication channel for enterprises. At their core, infostealers are a type of trojan designed by malware authors to harvest sensitive data such as login credentials, financial information, system details, and personally identifiable information.

These malicious files are engineered to extract as much information as possible, operating quickly and stealthily. Once collected, the stolen data is sent to command-and-control servers, where it can be exploited for various malicious purposes.

Infostealers in the wild

Some research suggests infostealers hit up to 10,000 victims per day; however Forcepoint research teams have observed increased activity from various infostealers recently, targeting victims in a number of ways.

The first is VIPKeyLogger, which circulates through phishing campaigns as an attachment that takes the form of an archive or Microsoft ...