A 2025 security breach exposed over 184 million private passwords. How to stay safe while you browse
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If you’ve been ignoring those pesky "suspicious login" alerts in your inbox, now might be the time to pay attention.
Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered an unprotected online database in May 2025, exposing over 184 million records — including email addresses, passwords and login links — stored in plain text (1). The leaked data is tied to major platforms like Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, along with government and financial services.
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Fowler is usually able to trace an exposed database back to its source — spotting breadcrumbs like company names, employee records or customer information. But this time the trail ran dry. There were no telltale signs of who the data belonged to or how it ended up online, making the breach even more unsettling.
“As far as the risk factor here, this is way bigger than most of the stuff I find, because this is direct access into individual accounts,” Fowler told Wired (2). “This is a cybercriminal’s dream working list.”
The breach could fuel fraud, identity theft and more. While data leaks might feel like background noise, ignoring this one could come back to bite you — especially if your Netflix password doubles as your online banking login. Here are some smart steps you can take to keep your information safe.
The cloud comes at a cost
In a 10,000-record sample of the breached data, Fowler found hundreds of compromised accounts, including major consumer platforms like Netflix, PayPal, Amazon and Apple. A keyword search revealed 187 mentions of “bank” and 57 of “wallet,” suggesting the breach may have exposed financial data, too. Perhaps most concerning was the discovery of 220 email addresses associated with .gov domains, raising broader national security implications.
The scale of cyberattacks isn’t just growing but evolving in ways that are becoming harder to contain, track and remediate.
Even publications that report on cybercrime aren’t immune. In December 2025, Wired and its parent company Condé Nast were targeted, with approximately 2.3 million email addresses leaked, and hundreds of thousands of names, physical addresses and phone numbers included in the breach. The exposed data elevates the risk of phishing, account takeover, doxing, and social engineering attacks for individuals affected in the leak, and shows how easily even large companies can be targeted (3).
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