Credential Theft: How Attackers Steal & Use Stolen Credentials
Huntress explains how attackers steal credentials through phishing, AitM, infostealers, and dumping, then use them for lateral movement, BEC, and ransomware.
Huntress published an educational overview of credential theft, citing that roughly 70% of confirmed data breaches begin with stolen credentials. It details acquisition methods including phishing, adversary-in-the-middle attacks that capture MFA session tokens, infostealers (nearly a quarter of threats Huntress observed in 2025), Mimikatz-based credential dumping, credential stuffing, and password spraying. The piece then covers post-theft actions such as lateral movement, privilege escalation, account takeover, business email compromise, and ransomware, and closes with behavioral detection guidance and layered prevention strategies.
- Roughly 70% of confirmed data breaches start with stolen credentials, according to Huntress.
- Adversary-in-the-middle phishing intercepts session and authentication tokens, letting attackers bypass MFA entirely.
- Infostealers accounted for nearly a quarter of threats Huntress observed in 2025.
- Credential dumping with Mimikatz and Registry hive copying can expose dozens of credentials from one endpoint.
- Stolen credentials typically lead to lateral movement, privilege escalation, BEC, or ransomware.
- ATT&CK
- T1566.002 Spearphishing LinkT1557.002 Adversary-in-the-MiddleT1539 Steal Web Session CookieT1003.001 LSASS MemoryT1003.002 Security Account Manager
- Tags
- adversary-in-the-middlebusiness-email-compromisecredential-dumpingcredential-stuffingcredential-theftinfostealerspassword-sprayingphishing
- Malware
- infostealers
- Organizations
- Huntress
From the original article
7 min read at huntress.comLearn what credential theft is, how attackers steal credentials, and how to prevent credential-based attacks with identity-focused defenses from Huntress.
huntress.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.