Insects that steal passwords increase significantly

They rose from 600,000 in the first half of 2018 to over 940,000 in the same period in 2019.

“Password and malicious viruses designed to collect user digital data are one of the most important weapons in cybercriminals' arsenals to endanger the private lives of users”, the security company researchers point out.

This particular type of software steals data directly from the browser and can also be designed to steal applications such as message services.

Over the past six months, Kaspersky has discovered the peaks of activity for these viruses in Europe and Asia.

In most cases they have targeted users in countries such as Russia, India, Brazil, Germany and the United States.