Recent headlines about “16 billion stolen credentials” have sparked debate amongst the CyberOne team, with many questioning whether the story passes the "sniff test". While the specific claims may be inflated, the underlying threat is undeniably real and growing.
Verified data tells a stark enough story: credential abuse has become the #1 initial access vector for data breaches, according to Verizon’s latest Data Breach Investigations Report. Infostealers alone stole 2.1 billion credentials last year, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the 3.2 billion credentials stolen from all organisations.
This represents what we refer to as the industrial scale of cybercrime. Attackers are no longer working on one account at a time. They’re using automation to test billions of stolen credentials across thousands of systems around the clock.
The scale transforms every individual breach into a systemic risk for organisations everywhere.
The Automation Advantage
Industrial-scale credential attacks exploit a fundamental imbalance in the system. Businesses face the same sophisticated threats as enterprises, but often lack the same security budgets and teams.
Attackers use automation to test stolen credentials against thousands of targets. They know many smaller organisations lack the resources to enforce strong identity controls, monitor dark web exposures or respond 24x7.
At CyberOne, we focus on closing that gap. We deliver enterprise-grade security, including Zero Trust identity, continuous monitoring and dark web detection, in a cost-effective, managed service model.
This helps businesses build the same level of resilience as larger organisations, without the overhead of building it all in-house