Employee risk and exposure was measured in a recent report by SpyCloud. The research found 27.48 million pairs of credentials with Fortune 1000 corporate email addresses and plaintext passwords, with over 223,000 exfiltrated by malware, specifically enabling access to cloud-based applications, including popular enterprise email, single sign-on (SSO), payroll management, hosting and collaboration tools. 

Researchers also observed a 62% password reuse rate among Fortune 1000 employees who have been exposed more than once. The report additionally identified nearly 31 million malware-infected consumers of Fortune 1000 companies. 

Additional key findings from the report include:

  • The technology sector has the highest number of malware-infected employees (67,723) and consumers (13.22 million); the highest number of exposed corporate credentials (7.52 million) and the most exposed malware cookie records of all industries, with 1.51 billion.
  • The report found a nearly 300% year-over-year increase in malware-infected employees tied to financial companies (15,274).
  • The financials sector had the worst password reuse rate (68%).