### Explanation
In today's digital landscape, data breaches have become increasingly common and widespread. This weakness stems from multiple factors:
- **Platform Breaches**: Major social media platforms and online services regularly suffer security breaches, exposing user data
- **Malware Infections**: Personal devices are frequently compromised by information-stealing malware that harvests saved credentials and personal data
- **Stealer Logs**: Specialized malware known as "stealers" systematically collect and aggregate user credentials, browser data, and other sensitive information, to sell it on the dark web
The scale and frequency of these breaches means that virtually everyone's data has been exposed in some form. This creates a compounding effect where:
- Each new breach adds to existing exposed data
- Correlation between different breaches reveals more complete personal profiles
- Historical breaches remain relevant as data continues to circulate
- Even security-conscious users may be exposed through third-party breaches
This weakness is particularly critical as it can compromise even well-secured accounts through no direct fault of the user.
### Examples
- [Have I Been Pwned: 11B+ breached accounts](https://haveibeenpwned.com/)
- [How Infostealers Pillaged the World’s Passwords](https://www.wired.com/story/infostealer-malware-password-theft/)
### Types
- technical
- business
### See also
- [[SOWEL-6. Reusing Personal Data]]
### Typical techniques
- {{internal links to typical techniques}}