The cybersecurity landscape is facing unprecedented challenges — and businesses are falling behind in robust, proactive defense strategies. As highlighted in the most recent Verizon report, a critical element in this environment is the pervasive threat of compromised credentials.
Verizon’s 2025 DBIR: Key Findings
- Credential abuse (22%) and exploitation of vulnerabilities (20%) are the leading initial attack vectors
- The report analyzed over 22,000 security incidents, including 12,195 confirmed data breaches
- Third-party involvement in breaches doubled to 30%, emphasizing supply chain risk
- Ransomware has risen 37% since last year, now present in 44% of breaches
- For SMBs, ransomware appears in 88% of breaches — the impact is disproportionate
Account Takeover as a Major Threat
Criminals leverage stolen email addresses, user IDs, and passwords to take control of legitimate user accounts, leading to fraud events. Compromised credentials provide attackers with the initial access needed to deploy ransomware — and beyond.
Proactive Credential Screening: Two Key Elements
1. Real-time intelligence: Continuously collect data on compromised credentials from sources like the darknet, phishing attacks, and malware-infected devices. “Inline real-time credential screening” integrates directly into customer credential processes — signup, account reset, or login — to proactively prevent the use of credentials already in criminal possession.
2. Comprehensive data: Go beyond basic breach information and password lists to include userID/password and email/password combinations. Such comprehensive data provides deeper insights into potential account-related risks.
What proactive screening enables:
- Stopping ATO: Identifying and preventing the use of compromised credentials at login or signup
- Preventing Credential Stuffing: Flagging users attempting login with known compromised credential pairs
- Detecting Compromised Employees: Scanning employee credentials to identify compromised passwords in Active Directory
- Mitigating Ransomware: Preventing initial access often gained via compromised credentials
- Breach Response: Determining the extent of a breach and identifying which credentials were exposed
Proactive credential screening is a crucial component of a multi-layered defense strategy — complementing strong password policies, vulnerability patching, and security awareness training. In today’s environment, it’s no longer optional. It’s a necessary investment for businesses seeking to safeguard their assets, protect customers, and ensure resilience.
The mechanics of how email became the digital economy’s most consequential vulnerability, the case studies that should have changed everything, and what a continuous intelligence approach actually looks like — all documented in “The Lying Gatekeeper,” a special report from myNetWatchman.
Read the Full Report →