Third Parties and Machine Credentials: The Silent Drivers Behind 2025's Worst Breaches

It wasn’t ransomware headlines or zero-day exploits that stood out most in this year’s Verizon 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) — it was what fueled them. Quietly, yet consistently, two underlying factors played a role in some of the worst breaches: third-party exposure and machine credential abuse. According to the 2025 DBIR, third-party involvement in breaches doubled