Cyber Threat Radar – The 2025 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment from Europol issues a stark warning to global security professionals: the underground economy built on stolen data is evolving into a mature and destabilizing force. And at the center of this illicit trade is data – consumed, commoditized, and redistributed with industrial efficiency.
But what the report only touches on—and what cybersecurity analysts are seeing in the field—is the transformative role of AI-powered malware in accelerating this crisis.
Today’s most effective cyber threats no longer rely solely on phishing or human error. Instead, they use AI-driven infostealers to observe, learn, and extract sensitive information in real time. These aren’t just crude keyloggers or snapshot-based screen scrapers. These are silent, persistent agents that can sweep entire spreadsheets, documents, chat logs, presentations, admin consoles—anything visible during an active session—and stream it to command-and-control infrastructure.
Entire Enterprises Reconstructed from Screens
Where once a file needed to be downloaded, or a credential explicitly stolen, AI-powered malware now harvests every piece of data rendered on screen or typed into any form. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at a single tab or quickly skimming multiple documents. These tools index your work, categorize it, and feed it into vast databases that can be queried and sold to the highest bidder.
What used to be a manual, piecemeal theft is now an automated, contextualized operation. Names, financial models, IP addresses, architecture diagrams, source code, personal details, and login sessions are captured passively as you work. The malware doesn’t have to break in anymore—it watches, records, and recreates.
The Criminal Supply Chain for Data
Europol’s report identifies this data as the linchpin of cybercrime. Whether used in business email compromise (BEC), ransomware campaigns, extortion, or identity fraud, data has become a cross-functional asset for threat actors. Breaches lead to further breaches as credentials open doors to more accounts and systems. Initial access brokers (IABs) and data brokers package this access and sell it on dark markets and encrypted messaging apps, fueling a self-replicating economy of exploitation.
The sophistication of this underground system mirrors legitimate business operations—with service layers, monetization models, and trusted criminal reputations. In this ecosystem, AI-powered infostealers are not just tools. They are force multipliers.
A Critical Blind Spot
Notably absent from Europol’s policy response was any clear call to arms for enterprises to harden endpoint security. While the agency proposes regulatory controls over encrypted communications and calls for better digital literacy, the glaring vulnerability remains: most organizations are leaving their data in use—the data actively displayed and entered on devices—completely exposed. That’s where endpoint threat prevention becomes critical.
Tim Royston-Webb, CEO of SentryBay, underscores the urgency: “AI-driven malware doesn’t need to steal a file anymore—it sees and copies everything you’re working on, in real time. That includes the full contents of documents, credentials, even internal dashboards. Most tools miss this. Our Armored Client doesn’t. It neutralizes keylogging and screen capture attacks at the system level, so even if malware gets in, it leaves with nothing usable.”
SentryBay’s Armored Client provides real-time, OS-level protection against the two most effective attack vectors of modern cybercrime: keylogging and screen capture. It scrambles keystrokes before malware can record them and blacks out unauthorized screen views to render visual data useless. Even AI malware equipped to reassemble business logic from passive observation is stopped at the source.
With full compatibility across IGEL OS-powered devices, Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365 environments, SentryBay offers healthcare providers, financial institutions, and global enterprises the enforcement they need at the endpoint—before damage is done.
Webinar Masterclass: The threat is evolving. So must the defense.
AI-powered malware is changing the game — are you ready to fight back? On average, it takes 204 days to identify a data breach caused by AI-driven threats and another 73 days to contain it. That kind of delay can devastate your clients’ reputation and bottom line.
Join Prianto Distribution UK&I on Thursday, July 3rd, 2025 for an exclusive live webinar where cybersecurity experts Paul Gilbert and Timothy Jenkins from SentryBay will reveal how the Armored Client stops AI-powered attacks in their tracks — including keylogging, screen capture, and DLL injection.
This is an essential session for all Prianto partners and resellers. SentryBay is the only proven solution trusted by global enterprises, healthcare providers, and government agencies to neutralize advanced malware threats — and it’s already in your portfolio.
Secure your seat today and empower your clients with true protection: https://zurl.co/T4nBJ
