The growing risk of breach insights: Exposing vulnerabilities in leaked data

Lab 1, through its AI-driven Exposed Data Intelligence platform, has unveiled a significant content-level analysis of breached datasets. This analysis highlights the critical risk of fraud impacting organisations, employees, and customers. Nearly all breached datasets contain sensitive financial, HR, and customer data.

By leveraging AI agents, Lab 1 meticulously scrapes and analyses breached datasets, including unstructured files such as PDFs, emails, spreadsheets, and code. Typically overlooked, these files pose a substantial threat for cyberattacks, social engineering, and fraud.

After analysing 141 million leaked files in the public from 1297 data breaches, Anatomy of a Breach Report reveals:

1. Widespread Exposure of Financial Documents: Financial data appears in 93% of incidents, accounting for 41% of exposed files. Bank statements were present in 49% of breaches, increasing the risk of identity fraud. IBANs, used in mandate scams and payment redirection, appeared in 36%.
2. Unrelenting PII Leaks: Human Resources data, containing personally identifiable information (PII), payrolls and resumes, featured in 82% of breaches. Most concerningly, US Social Security Numbers were exposed in 51% of cases. PII exposure can lead to targeted phishing, identity theft, and regulatory violations opening organisations up to the risk of substantial fines, legal action, and erosion of customer trust.
3. Emerging Cyberattack Avenues: Exposed cryptographic keys, allowing hackers to access secure systems, appeared in 18% of incidents. Breaches involving cloud indicators and code files unveil new vulnerabilities threatening the software supply chain.
4. Increase in attack blast radius: The implications of these breaches reveal a 61% increase in exposure risk over three years. The median exposure now spans 482 organisations, highlighting the expanding blast radius impacting often-unaware related parties.

Robin Brattel, Co-founder and CEO, Lab 1 said: “Rather than focus on mega data dumps of structured and primarily credential-based information, we've focused on the huge risks associated with unstructured files that often hold high-value information... With cybercriminals now behaving like data scientists to unearth these valuable insights to fuel cyberattacks and fraud, unstructured data cannot be ignored ... Ultimately, organisations must understand what information has been leaked, how it can be used, and who might be affected. And faster than it can be used against them.”