Attackers hit local and cloud-based password stores.
There was a major increase in malware targeting password and credential stores in the past year.
Based on analysis of more than one million pieces of malware collected in 2024 by Picus Security, the company found that 25 percent of malware targeted credentials in password stores, a three-fold increase from 2023.
Picus Security co-founder and VP of Picus Labs, Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan, said: “Threat actors are leveraging sophisticated extraction methods, including memory scraping, registry harvesting and compromising local and cloud-based password stores, to obtain credentials that give attackers the keys to the kingdom.
“It’s vital that password managers are used in tandem with multi-factor authentication, and that employees never reuse a password, especially for their password manager.”
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
