Infested Stone is visually indistinguishable from normal stone, which is its primary danger in Strongholds and mountain biomes. Breaking it with any tool spawns a silverfish — a small but persistent mob that calls nearby hidden silverfish out of other infested blocks, potentially triggering a chain reaction. In Strongholds, infested blocks disguise themselves as stone, cobblestone, stone bricks, and their mossy and cracked variants, making the entire floor, walls, and ceiling potentially hostile in certain rooms.

A practical way to identify infested stone without triggering it is to note breaking speed: infested variants break faster than their normal counterparts with bare hands, and slower with tools. In the Frozen Peaks, Jagged Peaks, and Stony Peaks biomes, it can also generate in the bedrock-reaching stone columns. Silk Touch removes infested blocks without spawning the silverfish, allowing players to collect them as a curiosity or use them as trap blocks in adventure maps. No crafting recipe exists for infested blocks.