Password Stealing Malware 60% More Prevalent

Recent research conducted by Kaspersky has revealed that there has been a huge spike in incidences of password and data stealing malware this past year. The first half of last year saw about 600,000 malware attacks that ended up with a number of people having their data stolen, and while that number may seem high it’s not quite as high as the number that we have seen during the first half of this year during which the number of malware attacks has risen from 600K all the way to 940,000.

This malware basically attempts to glean your information by targeting the auto-fill feature and cookies in web browsers which fills in your password for you. While this feature may be a convenience, the fact that it is often targeted by malware makes it something that you would need to reconsider using. A lot of the malware also targets user desktops with the main reason for this being that most users tend to use the desktop to store information that they need to be readily available, and this is the sort of information and data that most if not all hackers would be looking to exploit.

Avoiding the usage of auto-fill features and storing your sensitive information in encrypted folders could be a way to counteract the increase in malware attacks that have occurred over the past year. As the number of malware attacks in the first half of the year approaches a million, we will have to wait and see what is in store for us as malicious actors become increasingly adept at getting access to your personal information all in all.


Cyberhackers increasing use of malware designed to harvest consumers’ data
illustration: Freepik.

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