Weak credentials are fueling a new generation of cyber threats

ReliaQuest's research highlights an ongoing, large-scale credential exposure problem—approximately 24 billion breached credentials—with billions of unique username/password pairs enabling widespread account takeover through password cracking and credential stuffing; the report outlines cracking ease, real-world impacts (citing Verizon DBIR and a General Motors incident), and mitigation steps including long unique passwords, password managers, multi-factor authentication, and rate limiting.