Record-Breaking Start to 2026
It’s only January 23, 2026, but the year has already shattered records with 29 organizations breached in 22 days, compromising over 5.5 million records. Industries hit hardest include healthcare, manufacturing, finance, telecom, and even government agencies like ICE and Border Patrol.
Common failure points across these incidents: lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA), no endpoint detection and response (EDR), and inadequate vendor security audits.
Top Breaches Spotlight
European Space Agency (ESA), Eros Elevators, Sugawara Laboratories, and CSV Group top the list of confirmed victims this month. Ransomware actors like BrainCipher and INC_RANSOM claimed responsibility for attacks on entities including kisnet.co.jp, minorsgardencenter.com, nike.com, and nwlr.ca, with data posted on leak sites as recently as January 23.
- ESA: High-profile space agency targeted amid rising nation-state threats.
- Eros Elevators and Sugawara Laboratories: Manufacturing firms exposed to supply chain risks.
- CSV Group: Additional corporate data at risk.
Government and Critical Infrastructure Hits
ICE and Border Patrol suffered an insider breach exposing sensitive data on 4,500 employees—not via phishing, but legitimate access abused. Brightspeed, a major US broadband provider, is investigating claims of over 1 million customers’ PII, payment history, and card details stolen.
Third-Party and Vendor Nightmares
Ledger’s crypto customers (1.1 million emails, 292,000 personal records) impacted via e-commerce vendor Global-e. Betterment fintech platform hit through third-party access. ownCloud urges MFA after credential thefts via infostealers on self-hosted instances.
Healthcare and Legacy Exposures
Covenant Health updated victim count to 478,000 patients from a prior breach. Illinois health department exposed 700,000+ residents’ data since 2021, including Medicaid details, discovered in 2025.
Emerging Trends and Warnings
Ransomware groups recruit insiders via gig platforms. A 149 million credential dump (not a direct breach but infostealer malware harvest) targeted Gmail (48M), Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, and more. Hacktivists scraped and deleted white supremacist site data at Chaos Communication Congress.
World Economic Forum highlights genAI data leaks as a top 2026 concern.