Topic starter
22/01/2026 3:16 pm
TL;DR: Infostealers are increasingly used to capture identities, sessions, and valid credentials, which lets attackers move through environments without obvious malware or password guessing, according to CrowdStrike. That shifts the problem from endpoint compromise alone to identity trust, session handling, and continuous verification across systems.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by CrowdStrike: “How to Navigate the 2025 Identity Threat Landscape”.
Key questions
Q: Why do valid credentials and session tokens remain such an effective attack path?
A: Because they let attackers operate inside trusted access paths instead of breaking in noisily.
Q: Why are valid credentials so dangerous in identity attacks?
A: Valid credentials are dangerous because they inherit existing trust, roles, and access paths, which makes them harder to distinguish from normal activity.
Q: What are the signs that session security controls are not working?
A: The clearest signs are successful logins followed by abnormal device context, unusual geography, suspicious privilege use, or access that continues after trust should have been withdrawn.
Practitioner guidance
- Tighten session-level response policies Define when a live session should be challenged, reauthenticated, or terminated after anomalous behaviour, not only after password compromise.
- Correlate identity signals across platforms Join IdP, SaaS, endpoint, and privileged access telemetry so a stolen credential can be recognised as the same actor across systems.
- Treat browser tokens as governed assets Inventory where session cookies, refresh tokens, and cached credentials are issued, stored, and reused so they can be revoked when trust breaks.
Bottom line: Infostealers are most dangerous when they turn valid login state into a reusable trust artifact that survives initial authentication.
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08/10/2026 4:19 pm
Session trust is now the real attack surface: infostealers succeed because many identity programmes still treat authentication as the finish line. Once credentials, cookies, or tokens are stolen, the attacker inherits a live trust relationship that can outlast the original login. The implication is that identity security has to govern session continuity, not only credential issuance.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How should teams respond when an authenticated session looks compromised?
A: Contain the session first by revoking or invalidating the token, then compare current behaviour against prior access history to determine whether the identity has drifted. Response should focus on limiting further use of the trusted session, because the attacker may already be operating inside the access boundary.
👉 Read our full editorial: Identity protection and session security in the infostealer era