Agentic Attack Chains on the Rise: Infostealers Dominate Cybercrime Markets

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Agentic Attack Chains Evolve as Infostealers Flood Dark Markets

The threat landscape has shifted significantly over the past year, with cybercriminals increasingly relying on automated systems to carry out entire attack cycles with minimal human intervention. According to data collected from various dark web sources, stolen identity data, unpatched vulnerabilities, and ransomware operations have become deeply intertwined.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cybercrime

A recent report from Flashpoint highlights the growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) among cybercriminals. In 2025, the company tracked over 1.5 billion illicit discussions referencing AI, with a significant spike in December, where roughly 6 million discussions were recorded. These conversations focused on leveraging AI for various attack types, including deepfake technology, phishing lures, and malware development.

“The conversations we’re seeing today resemble the early stages of most cybercrime-as-a-service markets, where experimentation and tool building are underway,” said Ian Gray, VP of Intelligence at Flashpoint.

Threat Actors and AI-Powered Attacks

Threat actors are exploring systems that can scrape data about targets, generate tailored phishing lures, test stolen credentials across multiple services, and adjust tactics based on failed attempts without human input. However, building these systems into a coherent operational workflow remains constrained by reliability and integration challenges.

AI is accelerating the speed and scale at which existing tactics can be executed, Gray said. Defenders are also creating new exposure by connecting AI tools into production environments faster than they can assess the downstream risks. APIs, plugins, identity services, and internal tools are being integrated in ways that expand the attack surface.

Specific Attack Techniques

Specific attack techniques targeting AI workflows include slopsquatting, steganographic prompting, and AI sidebar spoofing. The Langflow vulnerability was exploited within days of discovery to build the Flodrix Botnet, targeting users of a platform built for constructing AI-powered agents. Separately, self-replicating supply chain attacks called Shai-Hulud targeted the npm ecosystem.

Stolen Credentials and Infostealers

Stolen credentials have become the primary entry point for attackers, with infostealers infecting 11.1 million machines in 2025, producing a stockpile of 3.3 billion stolen credentials, session cookies, cloud tokens, and personal records traded openly on dark markets. The top five most active infostealers by infected hosts were Lumma, Acreed, Rhadamanthys, Vidar, and StealC.

Ransomware and Vulnerability Windows

Vulnerability windows are shrinking, with Flashpoint cataloguing 44,509 vulnerability disclosures in 2025, a 12% increase year over year. Of those, 466 were confirmed as exploited in the wild. Nearly 33%, or 14,593 vulnerabilities, had publicly available exploit code.

Ransomware groups are targeting people, not just systems, with attacks increasing 53% year over year in 2025. RaaS groups were responsible for more than 87% of those attacks. The top RaaS groups by attack volume in 2025 were Qilin, Akira, Clop, Safepay Ransomware, and Play.

Combatting Threats

To combat these threats, organizations are advised to monitor for compromised credentials, track dark web mentions of their supply chains and partners, and conduct regular tabletop exercises and extortion playbook reviews. They should also move beyond CVE-only programs and add enrichment that includes exploit maturity, ransomware likelihood scoring, and MITRE ATT&CK mapping.