Credential stuffing: What it is and how to protect yourself

Credential stuffing is a low-cost, scalable attack where attackers use leaked or stolen username/password pairs—often gathered from data breaches or infostealer malware—to automate account takeover across services. The article explains why reused passwords and weak defenses enable these attacks, cites real-world impacts (e.g., PayPal account compromises and a 2024 Snowflake-related campaign affecting customers), and recommends defenses including unique passwords via password managers, two-factor authentication, breach monitoring, bot detection and rate-limiting, IP allow-listing, and adopting passwordless authentication.