The latest study by cybersecurity company Surfshark shows the US as the 1st most affected country, with 142.9 million breached accounts in 2025.
Globally, a total of 425.7 million accounts were compromised, with the US ranking first, accounting for 34% of all breaches that year. France is in second place, followed by India in third, with Germany and Russia completing the top five.
“Looking back at the data breaches of 2025, one thing is clearer than ever: we must stop treating breaches as singular, explosive events and start seeing them as a permanent feature of our digital environment. They are a constant threat, and your data is likely already exposed. Our focus must shift from simply reacting to incidents to changing our habits more broadly, for example, using personal data in ways that minimize the risk of loss or limit the harm to us,” says Tomas Stamulis, chief security officer at Surfshark.
Globally, over 800 account breaches occurred every minute last year
A quarterly analysis reveals that the last quarter was particularly severe, with compromised accounts surpassing 141.5 million — double the nearly 70 million recorded in the first quarter. While most quarters experienced an increase in breached accounts, the third quarter was an exception, showing a decline from 116.5 million in the second quarter to 97.7 million in the third. This pattern suggests that even cybercriminals might take a summer break.
Top data breaches and most affected sectors of 2025
An analysis of major data breaches reveals that the internet and telecom industry is hit hardest, with 20% of compromised accounts. The finance sector follows at 12%, and computers and consumer electronics account for about 10%. Travel and tourism, along with business and industrial sectors, each represent about 8% of breaches.
The adult industry also has a notable share, with jobs and education, home and garden, health, and vehicles not far behind. According to Stamulis, this underscores the widespread impact of data breaches across sectors, reminding us that no company is immune to these challenges.
Among the top data breaches in 2025 by the number of exposed accounts were incidents involving Mobile Free (12.8 million), Zacks (8.7 million), and Vietnam Airlines (7 million). Free Mobile experienced a breach that primarily affected France, with 10.3 million accounts compromised in that country. Zacks impacted the US the most, with 5.7 million accounts breached there. Meanwhile, Vietnam Airlines mostly affected Vietnamese accounts, with 6 million compromised. It’s important to note that while the breached data was identified as publicly accessible in 2025, the data breaches themselves may not have necessarily occurred that year.
Methodology
A data breach happens when personal data gets exposed to unauthorized third parties. In this study, we treat every email address used to register for online services as a separate user account, which may have been leaked with additional information, such as password, phone number, IP address, zip code, and more.
The data was collected by Surfshark’s independent partners from publicly available databases and aggregated by email address. This data was then anonymized and passed on to Surfshark’s researchers to analyze their findings statistically. Countries with a population of less than 1 million people were not included in the rankings.
