Infostealer Malware

An infostealer is malware whose purpose is to collect credentials and secrets from a machine it has reached and send them out, rather than to damage anything. On a device used for crypto it looks for the material that grants access: browser-stored passwords and session cookies, wallet files and their encrypted vaults, text files and photographs containing recovery phrases, and the contents of the clipboard. Session cookies matter as much as passwords, because a stolen session can bypass a login and its second factor entirely. Delivery is usually social rather than technical — a cracked application, a fake installer, a game or tool sent by someone who seems credible, or an attachment sent to a person whose job makes opening one normal. The consequence for how keys are handled is blunt: a recovery phrase that has ever been typed, photographed or stored on a general-purpose computer should be treated as exposed.