Growing up I always wanted to play the newest and most exciting games, and for me it was FIFA, Zelda and Red Alert. For my kids today it’s Roblox, Minecraft, and Call of Duty.

I remember, it wasn’t easy to convince your parents to constantly pay for these new games, so you compromise or you look up in Google “Free FIFA 2003 download.”

While today I know it’s illegal, for most kids, it starts innocently. Your child wants to make Roblox run faster. Or unlock a feature. Or install a mod that their friends are using.

They search Google or YouTube, find a video titled “NEW Roblox FPS Booster 2025 - FREE,” click a Discord link, download a ZIP file, and double-click an executable called something like RobloxExecutor.exe.

The game launches. Nothing looks wrong.

But in the background, something far more serious just happened. That “mod” wasn’t a mod at all. It was infostealer malware.

Within seconds, malware running on your child’s laptop harvested every saved browser password, session cookie, and authentication token on the system: Gmail, Discord, Steam, Microsoft. Maybe your corporate VPN, maybe Okta, maybe Slack, maybe GitHub.

The infection happened in your living room. The breach happens at your company. And neither you nor your child will notice anything until it’s too late.

Gamers Are Now a Primary Infection Vector

This isn’t science fiction. It happens every day. According to threat intelligence research, gamers have become one of the largest and most reliable infection pools for infostealer malware.

One recent analysis found that over 40% of infostealer infections originate from gaming-related files, including cheats, mods, cracked games, and “performance boosters.”

From an attacker’s perspective, gamers are the perfect targets:

• The majority are children or teenagers

• They constantly download third-party files

• They disable antivirus to “make mods work”

• They trust Discord links and GitHub repos

• They search for shortcuts, cheats, and bypasses

• They run random executables without hesitation

Most importantly: they are trained to execute untrusted code.

That behavior is exactly what infostealer operators need.

The Modern Roblox Mod Infection Flow

A typical Roblox infostealer infection looks like this:

1. Child searches for:

• “Roblox FPS unlocker”

• “Roblox executor free”

• “Roblox script injector”

2. They land on:

• A YouTube video

• A Discord server

• A GitHub repository

• A Google Drive link

3. They download a file:

RobloxMod.zip

  +- install.exe

They run install.exe

What actually executes is not a mod. It’s Lumma, RedLine, Vidar, or Raccoon, which are some of the most common infostealers on the planet.

No exploit. No vulnerability. No hacking required.

Just a simple psychological mechanism exploitation of a user (child) double-clicking a file.

Am I Exaggerating the Impact of Infostealer Hiding in Games?

I thought to myself that I am probably exaggerating. Kids, downloading, malware! No way.

So, I typed in Google “Roblox mod free,” and this was the first result I saw.

I went into the website, and then I saw the second option, uploaded January, 9th 2026.

I clicked on this option and tried to download the mod.

But wait, it’s quarantined, and clicking to see the report links to Virus Total, where you can see that this mod isn’t that innocent.

What an Infostealer Actually Does

Once executed, a modern infostealer immediately begins harvesting identity data from the system:

• Browser saved passwords

• Session cookies

• Autofill data

• OAuth tokens

• Discord tokens

• VPN credentials

• Crypto wallets

• Cloud logins

• SSH keys

• FTP credentials

From:

• Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave

• Outlook and mail clients

• Password managers

• VPN clients

• Developer tools

This entire process takes seconds.

The data is then packaged into what’s known as a “stealer log," a structured archive representing a full digital snapshot of that person’s identity.

That log is uploaded to:

• Telegram channels

• Russian Market

• Dark web marketplaces

• Criminal SaaS panels

where it is sold, resold, and indexed.

Why This Becomes an Enterprise Breach

To be honest, if you use your company laptop and stay aligned with corporate policy, compliance and guidelines, your kid probably won’t be able to download anything to the corporate computer. 

Here’s the part most people miss. Your child’s laptop isn’t just a gaming device, or alternatively gamers aren’t the only targets, attackers booby-trap anything free on the net. 

It could be:

• Illegal software of any kind

• Fake AI tools

• Browser extensions

• Fake installers for legitimate software

• Crypto and web3 tools

• Malicious documents and email attachments

• Adult and dating content

• Fake system utilities

So, basically everything that can run and is free on the internet is a potential horror movie scene.

If you downloaded any of the above and you do any of these actions:

• You check work email

• You access Slack

• You log into Okta

• You connect to VPN

• You approve MFA pushes

• You access GitHub

• You open internal dashboards

Infostealers don’t care who clicked the file. They care what identities exist on the machine.

So, a Roblox mod (or anything malicious) can steal:

• Corporate SSO credentials

• Active Directory passwords

• Session cookies that bypass MFA

• Access to internal SaaS platforms

And now your company is compromised - not through a vulnerability, but through a leisure download.

Trading Your Identity in the Underground

On cybercrime marketplaces, threat actors can purchase everything from raw infostealer logs to step-by-step tutorials, and even fully managed “Stealer-as-a-Service” offerings.

In the screenshot above, you can observe  an ad that offers access to Exodus stealer for a monthly cost of $500 USD and lifetime access for $2K USD.

While this specific ad falls under the too good to be true category and thus a scammer ad trying to defraud criminals, there are more realistic ads in the underground selling stealer access. 

You can also see the logs themselves. Below is a typical logs structure, including IP addresses, domains, and credit cards. In addition, they can also include single sign on (SSO), cookies, tokens, passwords, etc.

Below you can also see a tutorial in the underground illustrating the central part infostealers possess as part of the cybercrime attack chain:

This Is Not a “Kid Problem” - It’s an Identity Problem

What makes infostealers so dangerous is not the malware itself, but rather what they steal. Infostealers have effectively turned identity into the primary attack surface.

Instead of:

• Exploiting software

• Finding vulnerabilities

• Writing exploits

Attackers now:

• Harvest credentials at scale

• Buy identities in bulk

• Log in legitimately

• Bypass MFA with session tokens

• Blend into normal user behavior

This is why modern breaches increasingly start with:

“Valid credentials were used.”

Not:

“A vulnerability was exploited.”

And this is why infostealers have quietly replaced exploits as the dominant initial access vector.

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Sponsored and written by Flare.