You visit your office daily, go through your meetings, tick off your next achievements, and think you’re on top of your game. Meanwhile, someone you don’t know is silently watching your business, accessing your transactions, and stealing your confidential information.

That’s what happens when your credentials are leaked. So how much do you know about it? And are you ready to face it before it’s too late?

What are leaked credentials?

The term credentials refers to any identity-related data. It includes accounts, authentication, or financial access, such as personal information, session tokens, and banking details. If not properly preserved, these credentials can leak, leading to a full takeover, silent access, financial fraud, and a series of regulatory and legal issues.

How do they get leaked? (and how to avoid it)

Data Breaches:

Data breaches occur when a database is hacked or exposed due to security vulnerabilities. Causes include poor access control, unpatched systems, the human factor, or a third-party breach. This requires robust data storage, security plans, and regular audits to test and address weaknesses.

Data breaches are more frequent than companies anticipate. Financial institutions are particularly vulnerable, as banks often face targeted attacks, and it’s necessary to watch out for security mistakes before exposing thousands of customer credentials in a single incident.

Session Cookies:

These are small pieces of data that may be overlooked, used by browsers to identify the user on a website or application. They make browsing smooth and easy. However, if possessed by a malicious party through hijacking, MITM (Man-in-the-Middle), or other attacks, the stolen session can be used to impersonate the user and act on their behalf.

To protect session cookies and tokens, organizations must prioritize web and application security. Common best practices, such as encrypted connections and browser hygiene, can save your business the worry of leaks.

Malware:

Malicious software can be specifically tailored to steal credentials, with keyloggers and infostealers being the most common threats. These codes are made to capture your passwords or session tokens and ship them directly to attackers. Malware typically infiltrates systems through emails, malicious attachments, or compromised downloads.

Every machine in place should have security software and monitoring capabilities, and every employee should be trained to use it effectively and report any suspicious activity accordingly. When it comes to malware prevention, employee education is your first line of defense.

Social engineering scams:

Criminals often use social engineering to create leaks, with the mindset of hacking a human first, then using them to hack the system. A single phishing email will trick an employee into giving their login credentials, providing unauthorized access to the attacker with minimal effort.

With that said, regular phishing simulations and security awareness training are critical safeguards.

Overall, continuous cyber resilience must take place across the entire organization. The responsibility should be shared to achieve global security and protect those credentials.

The hidden danger: silent access

When credentials leak, they start a new cycle. They’re not just online; they are used multiple times over different channels and marketplaces. Your leaked credentials are probably circulating on the dark web and being sold to various parties with malicious intentions.

Criminal marketplaces alone must be a concern for every company that holds credentials. They bridge the gap between advanced hackers and other cybercriminals or groups, allowing even low-skilled attackers to purchase access to your infrastructure.

This is often the starting point of a series of attacks against your organization, and the real hidden danger that relies on the silent and persistent access.

Credentials as living assets

A large-scale study of leaked credentials by PMC shows that attackers continue to exploit stolen authentication material across distributed systems, indicating that leaked credentials remain a live threat long after the initial breach.

Attackers treat credential leaks as living assets and repeatedly attempt to use them after the initial breach, gaining silent access to compromised accounts.

Research by GitGuardian found that approximately 70% of leaked secrets remained active for up to two years after they first appeared in leaks. These credentials are there for the long term; they do not expire until the organization takes action.

Why Silent Access is So Dangerous

It is also recurrent that stolen credentials lead to silent access that's hard to detect. Attackers blend with users, and traditional security tools often perceive it as normal traffic.

This allows attackers to:

• Maintain persistent access without triggering alarms
• Conduct reconnaissance and map your systems over time
• Escalate privileges gradually to avoid detection
• Exfiltrate data in small increments that don't raise red flags

So the leak is not a single event; it’s an ongoing exposure that doesn’t stop until you act.

The role of CTI, even after the leak

Most companies think that a credential leak is the end; there is nothing to do about it, nor should they.

Yet, with silent access being a dangerous possibility, we should never underestimate the circumstances. And here comes the role of CTI.

A good cyber threat intelligence solution will help the company pinpoint the leaked data and respond decisively.

What this can look like for organizations:

• Deactivate compromised bank cards and force password resets to avoid identity theft and cut off the attacker’s access.
• Delete compromised accounts and disinfect concerned machines from any malware or established backdoors.
• Elevate internal surveillance and monitoring to track suspicious patterns or unauthorized activity.
• Analyze the sources of the leak to prevent similar incidents.
• Conduct security audits across the entire infrastructure to strengthen it against attacks.

How Defendis Turns Intelligence into Real Action

Defendis as your CTI provides you with the exact scene of how the leak happened. It not only detects the leak but also guides you to stop it.

The platform maps leak sources, identifies compromised accounts and machines through web and dark web monitoring. It crawls all public resources for you and provides a full report with an intuitive, interactive interface. And instead of wasting time on alerts, it helps your team build a direction and bring the leak to an end.

Even if a leak has already occurred, it’s not too late to regain control before the threat escalates. Get your dark web exposure report, detect your leaks, and let Defendis be your protector.