Recent data-leaks
Yes — there are significant recent data-leaks (or exposures) involving large companies like Google (and others such as Apple, Meta Platforms/Facebook) and third-party services. I’ll outline what’s going on, the consequences, and what you (and organisations) can do.
✅ What’s going on
Here’s a summary of the major issues:
- A cybersecurity report found that 16 billion login credentials (usernames + passwords) have been exposed, from multiple platforms including Google, Facebook, Apple. (CBS News)
- Important detail: This is not a single breach of one company, but an aggregation of many datasets (some older, many overlapping) collected via “infostealer” malware and credential-reuse attacks. (BleepingComputer)
- A major wave of breaches in 2025 has hit large organisations, including Google itself, via attacks on their use of third-party services (for example, the cloud CRM platform Salesforce). These attacks often used voice phishing (“vishing”) or social engineering, compromised OAuth tokens, then exported data from CRM systems. (PKWARE®)
- For example: Google admitted that a Salesforce-database used for advertising leads was accessed. (Fox News)
- Another recent leak: Over 1.3 billion unique passwords and ~2 billion email addresses were exposed (in a recent large corpus indexed by Have I Been Pwned). (Troy Hunt)
- Some rumours about Gmail breaches have been denied by Google (Google states there was no large-scale breach of Gmail as reported). (Techzine Global)
⚠️ Consequences
These kinds of exposures carry several risks, both for individuals and for organisations.
For individuals:
- If your credentials (email or password) are exposed, attackers may try to:
- Use them for account takeover, especially if you reuse passwords across services.
- Launch phishing attacks, using your exposed data to craft more convincing deceptions.
- Use your data for identity theft, fraud, or black-mail (especially with more sensitive data).
- Even if your main account is safe, leaked credentials might let attackers access less secure services you use.
- Since many datasets are aggregated, it’s often unknown whether you are affected, and by which service. For example, the 16 billion credentials leak has huge overlap and duplication, so you may be in it but cannot easily verify. (Axios)
For organisations/businesses:
- Reputational damage: being identified as a victim of a breach erodes trust.
- Regulatory/legal risk: data protection laws (like GDPR in the EU) may require notification, remediation, and can trigger penalties.
- Operational risk: data exfiltration from CRM, third-party platforms means system integrity and business processes are compromised.
- Third-party/supply-chain risk: even if your core systems are secure, the breach of a vendor you depend on (e.g., a SaaS platform) may still impact you.
- Accelerated shift: Attackers focusing on social engineering + third-party platforms (vs just network hacking) means organisations must adapt defence paradigms. e.g., The group ShinyHunters has been tied to many of these newer attacks. (Wikipedia)
🔧 What actions you (and organisations) can take
Here are best-practice steps — some you can apply personally, others if you run/oversee an organisation.
For you (as an individual):
- Change passwords, especially for accounts that share a password with another service. Use a strong unique password for each critical service.
- Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA/2FA) wherever possible — this adds a second barrier even if your password is compromised.
- Use a password manager to keep track of unique strong passwords easily.
- Check if you’ve been exposed: websites like Have I Been Pwned allow you to see if your email has appeared in a breach.
- Be extra alert to phishing — if your email is exposed, attackers may send more convincing messages pretending to be your bank, service providers etc.
- Monitor your accounts and credit reports — unusual login activity, unknown transactions, or credit file changes may signal misuse.
- Avoid password reuse across non-critical and critical services.
- If you suspect you were a target: consider enabling more secure options or even freezing credit (depending on your country).
For organisations/companies:
- Inventory third-party integrations: know which SaaS platforms, CRM systems, data repositories you use, and what access risk each holds.
- Enforce least-privilege access, strong authentication, and monitoring for key systems (especially third-party tools).
- Train staff on social engineering (vishing, phishing) because many recent breaches use human entry-points.
- Token/OAuth management: ensure tokens, refresh tokens, API keys are rotated, stored securely and access logged.
- Incident response plan: have a clear process for detection, containment, notification (legal/regulatory), and remediation.
- Data encryption and segmentation: even if data is accessed, ensure sensitive data is encrypted or logically separated so damage is limited.
- Vendor risk management: evaluate security posture of vendors, include contractual requirements for breach notification, audits, etc.
- Regular security audits and penetration testing: to surface weaker spots, especially in third-party links or misconfigurations.
- User behaviour analytics: detect anomalous access patterns or bulk exports of customer/CRM data.
Thank you for reading and sharing!
Invest in your future & learn
Learn affiliate marketing & build your own website.
Heads up! Make sure you sign up using my referral link to get access to my personal coaching and all features.
👉 Sign Up
