When a corporation’s credentials are leaked, the rapid penalties are not often seen—however the long-term affect is far-reaching. Removed from the cloak-and-dagger techniques seen in fiction, many real-world cyber breaches start with one thing deceptively easy: a username and password.
Based on Verizon’s 2025 Knowledge Breach Investigations Report, leaked credentials accounted for 22% of breaches in 2024, outpacing phishing and even software program exploitation. That is practically 1 / 4 of all incidents, initiated not by way of zero-days or superior persistent threats, however by logging in by way of the entrance door.
This quiet and chronic risk has been rising. New knowledge compiled by Cyberint—an exterior danger administration and risk intelligence firm lately acquired by Examine Level—reveals a 160% enhance in leaked credentials in 2025 in comparison with the earlier 12 months. The report, titled The Rise of Leaked Credentials, offers a glance into not simply the amount of those leaks, however how they’re exploited and what organizations can do to get forward of them. It is value studying in full for these liable for danger discount.
Learn the Report: The Rise of Leaked Credentials
A Surge Fueled by Automation and Accessibility
The rise in leaked credentials isn’t just about quantity. It is also about pace and accessibility. In a single month alone, Cyberint recognized greater than 14,000 company credential exposures tied to organizations whose password insurance policies had been nonetheless intact—implying lively use and actual risk potential.
Automation has made credential theft simpler. Infostealer malware, typically offered as a service, permits even low-skilled attackers to reap login knowledge from browsers and reminiscence. AI-generated phishing campaigns can mimic tone, language, and branding with uncanny accuracy. As soon as credentials are gathered, they’re both offered on underground marketplaces or provided in bundles on Telegram channels and illicit boards.
As outlined within the book, the typical time it takes to remediate credentials leaked by way of GitHub repositories is 94 days. That is a three-month window the place an attacker might exploit entry, undetected.
How Credentials Are Used as Forex
Leaked credentials are foreign money for attackers—and their worth goes past the preliminary login. As soon as obtained, these credentials grow to be a vector for a variety of malicious exercise:
- Account Takeover (ATO): Attackers log right into a consumer’s account to ship phishing emails from a legit supply, tamper with knowledge, or launch monetary scams.
- Credential Stuffing: If a consumer reuses passwords throughout providers, the breach of 1 account can result in others falling in a series response.
- Spam Distribution and Bot Networks: E-mail and social accounts function launchpads for disinformation, spam campaigns, or promotional abuse.
- Blackmail and Extortion: Some actors contact victims, threatening to reveal credentials except cost is made. Whereas passwords may be modified, victims typically panic if the extent of the breach is not clear.
The downstream results aren’t at all times apparent. A compromised private Gmail account, for instance, could give attackers entry to restoration emails for company providers, or uncover shared hyperlinks with delicate attachments.
Seeing What Others Miss
Cyberint, now a part of Examine Level, makes use of automated assortment techniques and AI brokers to watch a variety of sources throughout the open, deep, and darkish internet. These techniques are designed to detect leaked credentials at scale, correlating particulars like area patterns, password reuse, and organizational metadata to establish doubtless publicity—even when credentials are posted anonymously or bundled with others. Alerts are enriched with context that helps fast triage, and integrations with SIEM and SOAR platforms allow rapid motion, comparable to revoking credentials or imposing password resets.
Then, Cyberint’s analysts step in. These groups conduct focused investigations in closed boards, assess the credibility of risk actor claims, and piece collectively id and attribution indicators. By combining machine-driven protection with direct entry to underground communities, Cyberint offers each scale and precision—permitting groups to behave earlier than leaked credentials are actively used.
Credential leaks do not solely happen on monitored workstations. Based on Cyberint knowledge, 46% of the units tied to company credential leaks weren’t protected by endpoint monitoring. These embody private laptops or unmanaged units the place staff entry enterprise purposes, which may function blind spots for a lot of groups.
Cyberint’s risk detection stack integrates with SIEM and SOAR instruments, permitting automated responses like revoking entry or forcing password resets the second a breach is recognized. This closes the hole between detection and motion—an important issue when each hour counts.
The complete report dives deeper into how these processes work, and the way organizations can operationalize this intelligence throughout groups. You possibly can learn the complete report right here for particulars.
Publicity Detection Is Now a Aggressive Benefit
Even with safe password insurance policies, MFA, and trendy electronic mail filtering, credential theft stays a statistical chance. What differentiates organizations is how briskly they detect publicity and the way tightly their remediation workflows are aligned.
Two playbooks featured within the book present how groups can reply successfully, each for worker and third-party vendor credentials. Every outlines procedures for detection, supply validation, entry revocation, stakeholder communication, and post-incident evaluation.
However the important thing takeaway is that this: proactive discovery issues greater than reactive forensics. Ready for risk actors to make the primary transfer extends dwell time and will increase the scope of harm.
The flexibility to establish credentials shortly after they seem in underground boards—earlier than they have been packaged up or weaponized in automated campaigns—is what separates profitable protection from reactive cleanup.
In the event you’re questioning whether or not your group has uncovered credentials floating within the deep or darkish internet, you needn’t guess. You possibly can test.
Examine the Open, Deep and Darkish Internet for Your Group’s Credentials Now
Mitigation Is not Simply About Prevention
No single management can absolutely get rid of the chance of credential publicity, however a number of layers can scale back the affect:
- Sturdy Password Coverage: Implement common password modifications and prohibit reuse throughout platforms.
- SSO and MFA: Add limitations past the password. Even fundamental MFA makes credential stuffing far much less efficient.
- Charge Limiting: Set thresholds for login makes an attempt to disrupt brute-force and credential spraying techniques.
- PoLP: Restrict consumer entry to solely what’s wanted, so compromised accounts do not present broader entry.
- Phishing Consciousness Coaching: Educate customers about social engineering strategies to cut back preliminary leaks.
- Monitoring Publicity: Implement detection throughout boards, marketplaces, and paste websites to flag mentions of company credentials.
Every of those controls is useful, however even collectively, they don’t seem to be sufficient if publicity goes unnoticed for weeks or months. That is the place detection intelligence from Cyberint is available in.
You possibly can be taught extra strategies by studying the complete report.
Earlier than the Subsequent Password is Stolen
It is not a matter of if an account related along with your area will probably be uncovered—it is already occurred. The true query is: has it been discovered?
Hundreds of credentials tied to lively accounts are at the moment being handed round marketplaces, boards, and Telegram chats. Many belong to customers who nonetheless have entry to company assets. Some are bundled with metadata like system kind, session cookies, and even VPN credentials. As soon as shared, this data spreads quick and turns into not possible to retract.
Figuring out exposures earlier than they’re used is without doubt one of the few significant benefits defenders have. And it begins with realizing the place to look.
Risk intelligence performs a central function in detection and response, particularly in relation to uncovered credentials. Given their widespread circulation throughout legal networks, credentials require centered monitoring and clear processes for mitigation.
Examine if your organization’s credentials are uncovered throughout the open, deep, and darkish internet. The sooner they’re discovered, the less incidents there will probably be to answer later.