Acreed Infostealer: The Next-Gen Threat Leveraging Blockchain and Gaming Platforms for Undetectable C2

By CyberDudeBivash • October 01, 2025, 08:40 PM IST • Malware Analysis & Threat Report

The cat-and-mouse game of malware detection has reached a new level. We are tracking a new and highly sophisticated infostealer, dubbed **”Acreed,”** that represents a glimpse into the future of Command & Control (C2) evasion. Targeting the lucrative intersection of gamers and cryptocurrency users, Acreed’s payload is a potent credential harvester. But its true innovation lies in its C2 mechanism. Instead of connecting to a suspicious, attacker-owned server, Acreed “lives off the land” in the most modern sense—abusing legitimate, high-reputation public services like the Steam platform and public blockchains for its communications. This makes its C2 traffic almost impossible to distinguish from normal internet activity, allowing it to bypass firewalls and network-based detection with ease. This is our deep-dive analysis of this next-generation threat.

Disclosure: This is a technical threat analysis for security researchers, SOC analysts, gamers, and crypto users. It contains affiliate links to relevant security solutions and training. Your support helps fund our independent research.

Recommended by CyberDudeBivash — The Anti-Infostealer Stack

Kaspersky Premium / Business — The critical defense. Its behavioral analysis engine can detect the infostealer’s malicious actions on your PC.
YubiKey for Your Accounts — Makes the credentials stolen by the infostealer useless against your most important accounts.

Compromised? Need Help with Malware Analysis?
Hire CyberDudeBivash for incident response and reverse engineering services.

Threat Report: Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Evolution of C2 Evasion

Traditional malware calls home to a Command & Control (C2) server at a specific IP address or domain. Security tools can quickly identify and block these malicious destinations. To counter this, attackers began using techniques like domain generation algorithms (DGAs). Now, the most advanced threats are moving to a new model: abusing legitimate, high-reputation online services for their C2 needs. By hiding their communications in the traffic of services that every firewall trusts—like Google Drive, Twitter, or in this case, Steam and public blockchains—the malware’s network activity becomes invisible.

Chapter 2: Threat Analysis — The Dual-Channel C2 Mechanism

Acreed’s brilliance lies in its flexible and redundant C2 system.

Channel 1: Gaming Platform “Dead Drop”

The malware uses a public-facing part of a gaming platform, like a Steam user’s profile summary, as a “dead drop.”

The malware is hardcoded with the ID of a specific, seemingly random Steam profile.
It makes a standard, legitimate API call to `api.steampowered.com` to fetch the public data of that profile.
The attacker hides an encrypted command within the profile’s summary text.
The malware parses the text, decrypts the command, and executes it.

To any network security tool, this looks like a game launcher or a user simply checking a friend’s profile. It’s perfectly benign traffic.

Channel 2: Blockchain-Based Communication

For higher-stealth communication, Acreed uses a public blockchain like Ethereum or Binance Smart Chain.

**Receiving Commands:** The attacker sends a 0-value transaction on the blockchain and embeds an encrypted command in the `Input Data` field. The malware is programmed to query a public block explorer API (like Etherscan) for this specific transaction hash. It reads the input data, decrypts it, and executes the command. The command is permanent and unblockable.
**Exfiltrating Data:** To steal small, high-value data like a private key or seed phrase, the malware can encode the data and use it as input for a new transaction, creating an indelible record of the theft on the public ledger.

Chapter 3: The Kill Chain — From Game Mod to Drained Wallet

The initial infection vector is classic social engineering targeting the gaming community.

**Initial Access:** A user is lured into downloading a “new game cheat,” “free skin generator,” or “private test build” from a Discord server, torrent site, or phishing email.
**Execution:** The user runs the malicious executable, which may install a decoy application to avoid suspicion.
**Credential Harvesting:** The Acreed infostealer activates. It scrapes saved passwords and session cookies from browsers, steals Discord and Telegram authentication tokens, and searches for cryptocurrency wallet files (`wallet.dat`) and browser extension data (Metamask, etc.).
**C2 & Exfiltration:** The malware makes its initial call to its Steam “dead drop” profile to see if there are any immediate commands. It then uses a blockchain transaction to exfiltrate the stolen wallet seed phrase.
**Impact:** The attacker uses the seed phrase to drain the victim’s cryptocurrency wallet and uses the stolen credentials to hijack their valuable gaming, social media, and financial accounts.

Chapter 4: The Defender’s Playbook — How to Hunt for a Ghost

When you can’t trust your network logs, your defense must shift to the endpoint.

For Users

**Never Download Unofficial Software:** This is the golden rule. Do not download game cheats, mods, or cracks from untrusted sources. They are almost always malware.
**Use Phishing-Resistant MFA:** Protect your high-value gaming and financial accounts with a **hardware security key**. This makes the passwords stolen by Acreed useless.

For Security Teams

**Deploy EDR:** This is the only reliable technical defense. An **Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)** solution doesn’t care if the network traffic looks normal. It will detect the malware’s core malicious *behaviors*:
- A strange process accessing browser credential stores.
- A game executable making API calls to `api.etherscan.io`.
- Processes attempting to read the memory of `Discord.exe`.

👉 You can’t block the C2, so you must block the payload’s actions on the host. This is the core principle of modern endpoint security. Learn more in our **Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Best EDR Solution**.

Chapter 5: Strategic Summary & Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

Acreed is a significant evolution in malware design, representing a future where C2 traffic is almost entirely indistinguishable from the noise of the modern internet. It proves that relying on network-based indicators and blocklists is a failing strategy. The future of defense is behavioral analysis at the endpoint.

Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

Security teams should hunt for the following behavioral patterns and artifacts:

**File Hashes (SHA-256):**
- `7c3a8e9e1a1b2c2d2e2f3a3b3c3d4e4f5a5b5c5d6e6f7a7b8c8d9e9f0a0b0c0d` (example hash for Acreed loader)
**Behavioral IOCs:**
- Any non-browser, non-wallet process making API calls to `api.etherscan.io`, `api.bscscan.com`, or other block explorers.
- Any process unexpectedly querying the Steam Web API (`api.steampowered.com`).
- Unsigned processes attempting to read files from `%APPDATA%\discord\Local Storage\leveldb`.
**C2 Artifacts:**
- Steam Profile (Dead Drop): `steamcommunity.com/id/UpdateManagerService1` (example)
- C2 Ethereum Transaction: `0xabcde12345…` (example)

🔒 Secure Your Digital Assets with CyberDudeBivash

Malware Analysis & Reverse Engineering
Advanced Threat Hunting Services
Personal & Corporate Incident Response

About the Author

CyberDudeBivash is a cybersecurity strategist and researcher with over 15 years of experience in malware analysis, reverse engineering, and tracking advanced threats. He provides strategic advisory services to CISOs and boards across the APAC region. [Last Updated: October 01, 2025]

#CyberDudeBivash #Infostealer #Malware #Acreed #Blockchain #Steam #Gaming #CyberSecurity #ThreatIntel #InfoSec

Cyberdudebivash