In April, news headlines across Australia reported that 30,000 banking passwords had been stolen by malware directly from users’ personal devices. The culprit? Infostealer malware – malicious code that slips quietly into a user’s device, remains undetected, and slowly drains sensitive login credentials.

But here’s what the headlines didn’t mention: the same malware harvesting banking credentials is simultaneously targeting cryptocurrency private keys, wallet files, and exchange login data. While banks have fraud departments and insurance policies, crypto theft is permanent and irreversible.

According to a recent Forbes report, 1.7 billion credentials (revised 5 days later to 19 billion) were stolen in the 12 months from April 2024. Even more alarming, infostealer infections surged over 500% in the last 12 months, according to research by cybersecurity firm Flare.

For cryptocurrency investors, these statistics represent an existential threat. Unlike traditional banking fraud, stolen crypto disappears forever – no chargebacks, no insurance claims, no recovery options.

Cryptocurrency holders represent the perfect storm for cybercriminals:

• Irreversible transactions – Once crypto is moved, it’s gone forever.

• High-value wallets – Individual investors often hold significant portfolios.

• Minimal reporting – Most victims never publicly report crypto theft due to embarrassment or regulatory concerns.

• Technical complexity – Many investors lack sophisticated security infrastructure.

While major exchange hacks make headlines, individual wallet compromises represent a far larger attack surface. These personal thefts occur constantly but remain largely invisible. There is no mandatory reporting and no designated reporting channel, but we hear about them anecdotally through industry networks.

Human nature is such that victims seldom admit to being fooled and cleaned out.

Modern infostealer malware doesn’t just capture usernames and passwords. It systematically harvests:

• Private keys from encrypted wallet files – capturing keystrokes and clipboard data of PINs, passwords, and 12-word mnemonic seed phrases when users access their wallets.

• Seed phrases from documents or password managers – intercepting credentials as clear text when loaded into web forms, or wallets. Encrypted credentials are no longer encrypted when copied from the password manager into a web form. The asterisks are just a mask for the person looking over your shoulder.

• Exchange session tokens that bypass two-factor authentication. These can be copied to another device which immediately has access, bypassing the 2nd authentication step.

• Browser-stored wallet credentials from MetaMask, Coinbase, and other extensions through browser memory dumps and extension data harvesting.

Once a device is infected, criminals operate in real-time, transferring crypto assets while the victim remains completely unaware.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) was once the gold standard for security. But infostealers now harvest session tokens and cookies, allowing attackers to impersonate users without ever needing their credentials.

Antivirus software cannot detect modern infostealers, which are considered “non-malware”, legitimate code performing malicious functions. These attacks remain undetectable, operating silently for months while systematically draining users’ private data, login credentials, and cryptocurrency.

Traditional security measures fail because the attack surface has fundamentally shifted and consequently your device itself is compromised.

To counter this escalating threat, a new class of cybersecurity solution has emerged: the Fortified VPN.

Unlike traditional VPNs, which only encrypt traffic but filter nothing and leave the local device vulnerable, Fortified VPNs isolate the entire session in a remote, disposable virtual machine.

Here’s how it works:

• No software on the local device, including malware, can penetrate an image of a remote desktop beamed to your screen.

• Anything you do in that remote session, whether accessing your crypto wallet, logging into an exchange, or the bank, is completely isolated and secure from malware on your device or network.

• The virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) streams to your screen like a television broadcast – just pixels, and pixels don’t carry machine code. That isolation boundary blocks even the most advanced malware

• An Invisible Encrypted Keyboard bypasses local keyloggers completely when entering login credentials, mnemonic phrases, or private keys. This is an illusion created on a separate device.

• When the session ends, the remote environment evaporates without a trace.

The result: Your transaction is invisible to hackers and surveillance, even on compromised devices and unsecured networks. You can’t hack a stream of pixels.

With a 500% spike in infostealers and 19 billion credentials exposed, automated AI-driven attacks are outpacing traditional security – which is failing at scale. For cryptocurrency investors, this represents a fundamental shift in risk management.

The mathematics is stark:

• Traditional security tries to block threats and often fails. Defences aren’t perfect, and attackers need only find one gap or invent a new trick.

• Fortified VPN isolation makes crypto sessions invisible to malware.

• When nothing is stored locally, there’s nothing to steal.

BankVault cybersecurity’s Fortified VPN technology recently won at #ACE25 (Australian Cyber Exchange conference) in Sydney, standing out among the most advanced innovations in cybersecurity.

While other products attempt to detect and block threats, Fortified VPNs take a more radical approach – making users invisible.

For cryptocurrency investors, cybersecurity is no longer optional.  It’s existential. With crypto theft being permanent and irreversible, staying ahead of infostealer malware isn’t just prudent risk management, it’s survival.

With no software to install and no setup required, BankVault’s Fortified VPN technology gives crypto investors the power of invisibility, enabling secure access to wallets, exchanges, and banking even from compromised devices.

Visit www.BankVault.com and select Personal Cybersecurity / Crypto-Investor to explore how this approach protects what traditional security cannot.

“When your crypto session is only a remote image,there’s nothing local malware can penetrate or steal.These attacks aren’t just blocked, they’re impossible.

You can’t hack something that doesn’t exist.”

GRAEME SPEAK

CEO/Founder

Graeme Speak – Entrepreneur | Technologist | Kitesurfer

Graeme Speak is a veteran entrepreneur and innovator with 25 years of experience leading teams in cloud computing and cybersecurity. He leverages deep technical insights to solve tangible business problems where the solutions can be scaled for commercial success.

He is currently the CEO/Founder of BankVault.com, a technology innovation company rethinking cybersecurity which he leads from Silicon Valley/San Francisco.  The team is pioneering intelligent new approaches to web security, and their work is backed by Turing Laureate Whitfield Diffie (the Father of Internet Encryption).

He holds 14 patents and has directed the development of 30 distinct technologies.

LinkedIn  https://www.linkedin.com/in/graemespeak/

Oryginally published on:

https://spektrumlab.io/protect-your-crypto-how-fortified-vpns-shield-against-infostealer-malware-by-graeme-speak/