Theft in cybersecurity covers stolen data, credentials, devices, and funds, often creating risks of unauthorized access, fraud, and privacy loss.
Search across headline titles and summaries.
Background for this topic.
Unauthorized taking or copying of information, credentials, intellectual property, or digital assets is cyber theft. News under this tag may involve stolen passwords, payment data, personal information, source code, cloud tokens, cryptocurrency, or sensitive business files. Theft can result from phishing, malware, compromised accounts, insider access, exposed storage, or the loss of an unencrypted device; the relevant issue is the unauthorized acquisition or control of an asset, whether or not the attacker also alters systems.
Security teams should identify where valuable data and credentials are stored, restrict access by role, require strong authentication, encrypt data at rest and in transit, and monitor unusual downloads or transfers. Vulnerability management matters when flaws expose databases, endpoints, or cloud services to unauthorized retrieval. After suspected theft, preserving logs, revoking tokens and credentials, determining what was accessed or copied, and assessing privacy or notification obligations are central to containing the incident and measuring its impact.
Malware Captures Billions of CredentialsThe threat posed by information-stealing malware continues to rise, as it mass harvests ever-greater quantities of user credentials and offers them for sale across the cybercrime underground. Researchers have recently tracked 1.8 billion stolen credentials being sold across illicit marketplaces.
Regulators Want to Know If Insurer Delayed Notifying 462,000 Affected MembersMontana regulators are investigating a breach affecting 462,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana members involving one of the insurer's service providers. The vendor, Conduent, in April notified the SEC that the data theft affected numerous clients and a "significant number" of people.
Microsoft Says Hackers Pivoting to Identity CompromiseHackers are as likely to log in as break in, warns Microsoft in an annual assessment of cyberthreats. During the first half of 2025, identity-based attacks rose by 32% due to credentials stolen by infostealers or password and email combinations plucked from bulk data breaches.
2023 Data Theft Affected Nearly 887,000 PatientsA radiology practice that has been serving patients in North Carolina for about 70 years agreed to pay more than $3.4 million to settle proposed class action litigation filed in the wake of a 2023 hacking incident that compromised the sensitive information of nearly 887,000 individuals.
Ransomware Group Lynx Reportedly Stole 4TB of DataThe U.K. Ministry of Defense is investigating an apparent data breach by Russian-speaking ransomware hackers of a building facilities contractor with ties to the military. The Lynx ransomware group posted on its darkweb site samples of what it says is 4 terabytes of data stolen from the Dodd Group.