--- title: "24 Billion Credential Leak Analysis | Firevault" url: https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak description: "Cybernews researchers found an 8.3 TB Elasticsearch cluster holding 24 billion records, including plaintext passwords and login URLs harvested from…" lang: en-GB --- News · Threat Analysis · 19 June 2026 # 24 billion credentials exposed in record infostealer leak Cybernews researchers found an 8.3 TB Elasticsearch cluster holding 24 billion records, including plaintext passwords and login URLs harvested from infostealer logs. Image: Mark Fermor (https://fire-vault.com/assets/mark-fermor-DWFWqeWL.jpg) Mark Fermor CTO, CMO & Founder, Firevault 4 min read Share Share on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2F24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak Share on X: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2F24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak&text=24%20billion%20credentials%20exposed%20in%20record%20infostealer%20leak%0A%0ACybernews%20researchers%20found%20an%208.3%20TB%20Elasticsearch%20cluster%20holding%2024%20billion%20records%2C%20including%20plaintext%20passwords%20and%20login%20URLs%20harvested%20from%20infostealer%20logs. Share on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Ffire-vault.com%2Fnews%2F24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak Image: A heavy steel vault door slightly ajar, with reels of magnetic tape spilling out onto a concrete floor, lit by a low magenta accent glow. (https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg) A heavy steel vault door slightly ajar, with reels of magnetic tape spilling out onto a concrete floor, lit by a low magenta accent glow. Why it matters ## What this means for organisations holding critical data Cybernews researchers have uncovered an exposed Elasticsearch cluster holding roughly 24 billion records and more than 8.3 terabytes of data, drawn from infostealer malware logs, breach compilations and Telegram dumps. Even allowing for heavy duplication, it is one of the largest credential troves ever publicly catalogued. According to Deputy Editor Vilius Petkauskas, the team had to triple-check the find before publishing. The cluster pulled records from 36 separate sources, including breach "collections" and Telegram channels where stealer logs are routinely traded. The database is no longer publicly exposed, but the underlying credentials are already in circulation. ## What was found The bulk of the records appear to be infostealer logs: structured captures lifted from infected endpoints by malware families such as RedLine, Raccoon and Lumma. A typical line contains a username, an email address, a plaintext password and the exact login URL the credential belongs to, sometimes with session cookies attached. That format matters. Unlike a leaked password hash, an infostealer log is a working set of keys with the lock address printed on the front. Researchers cannot yet confirm how many records are duplicates, or how many unique people are affected, but the practical attack surface is enormous. ## Why infostealer logs matter Infostealers do not guess passwords. They sit on a real device, wait for the user to log in, and copy what the browser already knows: saved credentials, autofill data, session cookies, crypto wallet files and, increasingly, multi-factor tokens. Strong password policies, rotation rules and SMS-based MFA do very little against that. When those logs are aggregated into a single 24-billion-row index, two things happen at once. First, criminals can pivot from a low-value personal account to a corporate single sign-on entry point in minutes. Second, defenders lose any meaningful concept of "this credential is safe because it has not been in a public breach". The default assumption now has to be that it has. ## Scale and the reuse problem Password reuse turns a personal credential leak into a corporate one. A laptop infected at home leaks the same password the user types into the company VPN. Pension, payroll and customer portals routinely show up in stealer logs alongside Netflix and Steam. With 24 billion records to draw on, credential-stuffing operators can saturate every public login endpoint at very low cost. The financial services, e-commerce and SaaS sectors will absorb most of the visible damage. The harder problem is what happens to long-life secrets, the ones that protect recovery, succession and audit material. Those rarely rotate, and they are often stored in the same browser, password manager or cloud vault as everything else. ## The Firevault view This is the failure mode Firevault was built to remove. A networked password manager, however well engineered, is reachable by anything that can run code on the endpoint. An infostealer that captures the master password, the session token or the cloud backup defeats the entire model in one step. An offline secure storage (https://fire-vault.com/offline-secure-storage) module is not a replacement for a password manager. It is a physically separate place to hold the material that must survive an endpoint compromise: recovery keys, seed phrases, root credentials, succession instructions and the audit secrets you would need to rebuild trust afterwards. A Firebreak deployment keeps that material in a tamper-evident enclosure with no network path that a stealer log can ever reach. The question we keep putting to security leaders is simple: if every credential your team has typed in the last five years showed up in a 24-billion-row index tomorrow, which of your secrets would you wish had never touched a browser? ## What to do now - Rotate any password that has been reused across personal and work accounts, starting with email, VPN, single sign-on and finance systems. - Move from SMS and app-based one-time codes to phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication: passkeys, FIDO2 security keys or platform authenticators. - Hunt for infostealer indicators on endpoints: unexpected browser profiles, recent password manager exports, anomalous traffic to Telegram or paste sites. - Move long-life secrets, recovery keys and succession material into an offline, physically air-gapped store. Talk to us about gold-copy backups (https://fire-vault.com/solutions/oss/use-cases/gold-copy-backups) and Firebreak deployments (https://fire-vault.com/firebreak). ## Sources - Vilius Petkauskas, Cybernews, "24 billion records, including usernames and passwords, exposed in colossal data leak" (https://cybernews.com/security/24-billion-credentials-data-leak/). _Analysis by Mark Fermor, Firevault._ **How Firevault helps** - **Offline Secure Storage (https://fire-vault.com/offline-secure-storage)** keeps gold-copy data physically disconnected from the network, so a ransomware or exfiltration event cannot reach it. - **Control (https://fire-vault.com/control)** gives boards and operators a single view of what is online, what is isolated, and what is recoverable across the estate. - **Firebreak (https://fire-vault.com/firebreak)** delivers hardware-enforced disconnection at Layer 1, so exposed credentials or compromised network paths cannot become a route into the vault. _Talk to Firevault about Disconnect to Protect® (https://fire-vault.com/about) for your organisation._ Sources ## Where this reporting comes from 01 **Original report**Primary coverage referenced in this analysis View original article (https://cybernews.com/security/24-billion-credentials-data-leak/) About the author ### Mark Fermor Mark Fermor on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfermor) CTO, CMO & Founder Founder of Firevault, focused on offline secure storage and protecting individuals and businesses from fraud, fines, loss and damage. Speaker, owner and advisor. How Firevault would handle this ## A recovery copy an attacker cannot reach Offline Secure Storage® keeps a clean copy of your data on hardware that is physically disconnected, so backup and recovery do not depend on systems an intruder can touch. Get started: https://fire-vault.com/get-started Talk to the team: https://fire-vault.com/demo **Hardware**Your copy sits on dedicated encrypted hardware **Disconnect**Offline by default, connected only when you say so **Recovery**A known-clean copy to rebuild from, on your timetable **Location**Held in a secure Firevault Bunker Related Reading ## You may also find these useful Threat Analysis ### Fake job interviews infected 30,000 devices, FBI-led advisory says A joint FBI-led advisory says North Korean WaterPlum actors used fake technical interviews and coding tests to infect at least 30,000 devices in more than 100 countries. 25 Sept 2026 5 min https://fire-vault.com/news/waterplum-contagious-interview-30000-devices-2026 Threat Analysis ### Blockchain dead drops surge 440% as North Korea and Iran hide malware on public ledgers Chainalysis research shows malicious blockchain writes rising from 2.06 to 11.1 a day in under a year, with state-linked groups now behind most new activity. Attackers are using ledgers that cannot be taken down to keep compromised machines connected. 24 Sept 2026 3 min https://fire-vault.com/news/blockchain-dead-drops-malware-surge-2026 Threat Analysis ### Scattered Spider Guilty Pleas: What the TfL Hack Confirms About Offline Recovery Two Scattered Spider members have admitted the £39m TfL hack. Mark Fermor on identity blast radius and why offline recovery is the deciding layer. 22 Jun 2026 4 min https://fire-vault.com/news/scattered-spider-tfl-guilty-plea-offline-recovery Threat Analysis ### UK critical infrastructure hit by 200 cyber incidents in a year, NCSC warns NCSC chief Richard Horne says the UK faced more than 200 nationally significant cyber incidents against critical infrastructure in a year, with about three-quarters tied to state actors. 20 Jun 2026 5 min https://fire-vault.com/news/ncsc-uk-critical-infrastructure-incidents-double Threat Analysis ### FortiBleed: 74,000 Fortinet firewalls leak plaintext credentials Researchers say a Russian-speaking crew cracked nearly half the internet's Fortinet firewalls, exposing plaintext logins for Oracle, Chevron, Lenovo, FedEx, a NATO defence contractor and Fortinet itself. 18 Jun 2026 4 min https://fire-vault.com/news/fortibleed-74000-fortinet-firewalls-credentials-exposed Breach Analysis ### Dyfed-Powys Police confirms cyber attack as staff information may have been compromised Dyfed-Powys Police has confirmed that a cyber attack identified on 14 September disrupted non-emergency systems and may have exposed staff information. The force says it has found no evidence that public data was accessed. 25 Sept 2026 3 min https://fire-vault.com/news/dyfed-powys-police-cyber-attack-2026 ## Suggested Reading - What is Offline Secure Storage The foundation of physical disconnection: https://fire-vault.com/how-it-works/offline-secure-storage - Why Offline Secure Storage The case for physical control: https://fire-vault.com/why-oss - Ransomware Defence Hold gold copies offline: https://fire-vault.com/oss-for-ransomware-recovery - Control Physical path control for IT and OT: https://fire-vault.com/solutions/control - Knowledge Vault All articles, guides and whitepapers: https://fire-vault.com/learn/knowledge - Book a Demo See Firevault in action: https://fire-vault.com/demo Back to Knowledge Vault: https://fire-vault.com/learn/knowledge ## Structured data ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization", "name": "Firevault", "legalName": "Firevault Limited", "url": "https://fire-vault.com", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://fire-vault.com/logo.png", "width": 200, "height": 60 }, "foundingDate": "2025-03", "description": "Protect what matters with Offline Secure Storage and control what moves with Control by Firevault. Physically disconnected, always reachable by you.", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressCountry": "GB", "addressLocality": "United Kingdom" }, "contactPoint": [ { "@type": "ContactPoint", "contactType": "customer service", "email": "hello@fire-vault.com", "availableLanguage": "English", "areaServed": [ "GB", "EU", "US", "AE" ] }, { "@type": "ContactPoint", "contactType": "sales", "email": "sales@fire-vault.com", "availableLanguage": "English", "areaServed": [ "GB", "EU", "US", "AE" ] } ], "founder": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Fermor", "jobTitle": "Founder, CTO and CMO" }, { "@type": "Person", "name": "David Bailey", "jobTitle": "Founder and CEO" } ], "areaServed": [ "United Kingdom", "Europe", "United States", "Middle East" ], "sameAs": [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/firevault", "https://x.com/firevaultuk" ], "slogan": "Disconnect to Protect", "brand": [ { "@type": "Brand", "name": "Offline Secure Storage" }, { "@type": "Brand", "name": "Control by Firevault" }, { "@type": "Brand", "name": "Firebreak" } ], "knowsAbout": [ "Offline Secure Storage", "Physically disconnected data storage", "Physical Air Gap Data Protection", "Ransomware Protection", "Ransomware recovery", "3-2-1-1-0 backup rule", "AI kill switch", "Operational technology security", "Critical national infrastructure resilience", "Data Sovereignty", "GDPR Compliance", "NIS2 Compliance", "DORA Compliance", "NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework" ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#website", "name": "Firevault", "alternateName": [ "Firevault", "Firevault UK", "Firevault Limited" ], "url": "https://fire-vault.com", "publisher": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "description": "Protect what matters with Offline Secure Storage and control what moves with Control by Firevault. Physically disconnected, always reachable by you.", "potentialAction": { "@type": "SearchAction", "target": { "@type": "EntryPoint", "urlTemplate": "https://fire-vault.com/learn?q={search_term_string}" }, "query-input": "required name=search_term_string" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak#webpage", "url": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak", "name": "24 Billion Credential Leak Analysis", "description": "Cybernews researchers found an 8.3 TB Elasticsearch cluster holding 24 billion records, including plaintext passwords and login URLs harvested from…", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#website" }, "about": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization" }, "primaryImageOfPage": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg" }, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak#breadcrumb" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://fire-vault.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Learn", "item": "https://fire-vault.com/learn" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Knowledge Vault", "item": "https://fire-vault.com/learn/knowledge" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "24 billion credentials exposed in record infostealer leak", "item": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak" } ] }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "24 billion credentials exposed in record infostealer leak", "description": "Cybernews researchers found an 8.3 TB Elasticsearch cluster holding 24 billion records, including plaintext passwords and login URLs harvested from infostealer logs.", "url": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg", "width": 1200, "height": 1200 }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg", "width": 1200, "height": 900 }, { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg", "width": 1200, "height": 675 } ], "thumbnailUrl": "https://zomvctmqpgirvjnvawlz.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/article-images/news%2F24bn-credentials-infostealer-hero.jpg", "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mark Fermor", "jobTitle": "CTO, CMO & Founder", "worksFor": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization" }, "url": "https://fire-vault.com/why-oss/about" }, "publisher": { "@type": "NewsMediaOrganization", "name": "Firevault", "url": "https://fire-vault.com", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://fire-vault.com/logo.png", "width": 600, "height": 60 } }, "datePublished": "2026-06-19T20:49:36.21902+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-08-28T08:03:22.256672+00:00", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/news/24-billion-credentials-infostealer-leak" }, "inLanguage": "en-GB", "articleSection": "Threat Analysis", "wordCount": 783, "keywords": "Threat Analysis, data breach, cyber security, offline secure storage, data protection, physical air gap", "articleBody": "Cybernews researchers have uncovered an exposed Elasticsearch cluster holding roughly 24 billion records and more than 8.3 terabytes of data, drawn from infostealer malware logs, breach compilations and Telegram dumps. Even allowing for heavy duplication, it is one of the largest credential troves ever publicly catalogued. According to Deputy Editor Vilius Petkauskas, the team had to triple-check ", "dateline": "United Kingdom", "speakable": { "@type": "SpeakableSpecification", "cssSelector": [ "h1", ".article-summary", "h2" ] }, "isAccessibleForFree": true, "copyrightHolder": { "@id": "https://fire-vault.com/#organization" }, "copyrightYear": 2026 }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [ { "@type": "Question", "name": "What was leaked?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "An exposed Elasticsearch cluster of about 8.3 TB containing roughly 24 billion records sourced from infostealer logs, breach compilations and Telegram dumps. Records include usernames, email addresses, plaintext passwords and the login URLs they belong to." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "Am I affected?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "It is safest to assume any password reused across personal and work accounts in the last several years is exposed. Rotate reused passwords, enable phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication such as passkeys or FIDO2 security keys, and monitor for infostealer indicators on your devices." } }, { "@type": "Question", "name": "How does offline secure storage help?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Infostealers run on live, networked endpoints. A physically air-gapped Firevault module holds recovery keys, root credentials and succession material on hardware that the malware cannot reach, so a compromised laptop does not become a compromised vault." } } ] } ] ```