An unprecedented wave of credential theft has defined the cybersecurity landscape in 2025, with threat actors increasingly leveraging stolen digital identities to bypass traditional defenses. Recent industry analyses reveal a staggering 160% increase in credential-based breaches compared to previous periods, with data stolen from nearly 5.8 million infected hosts fueling the exponential rise in identity-based attacks.
This surge reflects not only the growing capabilities of adversaries—driven by artificial intelligence (AI), malware-as-a-service (MaaS), and sophisticated infostealers—but also systemic vulnerabilities in enterprise identity protection.
Data Confirms Explosive Growth in Credential Theft During 2025
Credential theft has rapidly evolved from a niche risk vector into one of the most dominant cyber threats in 2025. According to Check Point and Flashpoint’s midyear analyses, these incidents are no longer isolated but affect global enterprises across multiple sectors.
1.8 Billion Credentials Compromised in Six Months
Flashpoint’s Global Threat Intelligence Index reports that 1.8 billion credentials were stolen in the first half of 2025. This marks an 800% surge in identity-based attacks, representing a critical inflection point in the threat landscape. These credentials were harvested from 5.8 million infected endpoints, often through information-stealing malware installed without user awareness.Major contributors to this spike include malware families such as:
- Lumma and Redline — legacy infostealers still in active deployment
- StealC and Acreed — emerging strains featuring evasive and modular functionality
Once stolen, credentials provide undetected access to enterprise systems, especially those lacking multi-factor authentication (MFA). In many cases, unauthorized access was the initial attack vector, leading to lateral movement and subsequent data breaches.
Credential Theft Now Causes 20% of Data Breaches
According to Check Point, credential theft now accounts for 20% of reported data breaches globally. In a single month, over 14,000 cases of exposed employee credentials were documented.The average window for attacker exploitation is significant. Credentials exposed, particularly through GitHub repositories, take an average of 94 days to remediate. This lag increases organizational risk, giving threat actors time to infiltrate and exploit compromised environments.
Malware-as-a-Service Platforms and Phishing Fuel Data Exposure at Scale
The accessibility of malware-as-a-service architectures on dark web marketplaces has lowered the technical barrier for cybercriminals. These platforms allow less experienced actors to rent ready-made toolkits that deploy credential-stealing malware with minimal effort.In parallel, AI-enhanced phishing campaigns have become increasingly effective, contributing to the rise in compromised identities. These campaigns engineer highly personalized messages that trick users into revealing credentials or installing malicious payloads.
Discord, Microsoft, Gmail Domains Frequently Targeted
Adversaries repeatedly target login portals associated with high-trust domains. Check Point’s analysis highlighted the most commonly exploited platforms in credential theft incidents:
- Microsoft (Outlook, Office 365)
- Google/Gmail
- Discord
- Roblox
Stolen credentials from such platforms are often bundled, sold, or used in follow-on attacks, such as business email compromise (BEC) and ransomware deployment.
Vulnerability Spike Further Exposes Enterprise Identities
The surge in credential theft coincides with a deluge of unpatched vulnerabilities. From January to June 2025:
- Over 20,000 vulnerabilities were disclosed
- 12,200 of these are not yet listed in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD)
- Nearly 7,000 vulnerabilities have public exploit code
This 246% increase in disclosed vulnerabilities and 179% rise in known exploits puts enormous pressure on security teams, particularly in environments with poor patch hygiene. Credential theft often coincides with exploitation campaigns that take advantage of these weaknesses to install infostealers and lateral movement tools.
Flashpoint’s report noted a backlog of 42,000 vulnerabilities awaiting NVD analysis—a blind spot exacerbating organizational exposure.
Retail, Healthcare, and Finance Sectors Face Heightened Risk
KnowBe4’s report on the global retail sector confirms that identity-based threats are not evenly distributed across industries. The company found that credential harvesting now surpasses payment card theft as the primary threat in retail breaches, accounting for 38% of attacks in 2023.Flashpoint further notes that the following sectors account for the highest share of data breaches:
- Professional, scientific, and technical services — 18%
- Healthcare and social assistance — 15.9%
- Finance and insurance — 13%
- Manufacturing — 10.4%
- Information — 10.2%
The United States is particularly affected, suffering 2,055 successful breaches in six months—more than half of all global incidents.Across all sectors, data breaches increased by 235% in early 2025, with over 9.45 billion records leaked. Nearly 78% were caused by unauthorized access—often made possible through the use of stolen credentials.
Effective Defenses Hinge on Credential Security Modernization
Security vendors and analysts agree that organizations need to address this mounting threat through both technology and user behavior. Check Point and Flashpoint recommend a layered, risk-based defense aligned with credential hygiene.
Recommended Mitigations Include:
- Enforcing strong password policies with regular rotation
- Enabling MFA across all employee and privileged accounts
- Adopting single sign-on (SSO) solutions to reduce password sprawl
- Implementing account lockout and device-based login restrictions
- Delivering targeted phishing awareness training
- Integrating intrusion detection and firewall systems at the network perimeter
- Applying risk-based patching to prioritize vulnerabilities with known exploits
Credentials remain one of the most valuable assets for attackers due to the access they grant without immediately triggering alerts. As credential theft continues to escalate—both in scale and consequence—cybersecurity teams must align detection, prevention, and response strategies around identity protection as a core pillar.
