During the second quarter of 2025, over three million British user accounts were breached. Globally, data breaches decreased by 58%, yet the number of leaked accounts rose to 94 million, with the US being the most affected. The UK's numbers fell by 58% compared to the previous quarter, ranking seventh globally with 944,000 breached accounts. Since 2004, the UK has seen a staggering 369.9 million compromised accounts and 79.4 million unique emails breached. Nearly two-thirds of breached users face risks of identity theft or account takeover due to leaked passwords.
Whether sharing your name and address for food deliveries, or phone numbers when making a booking at a barber shop, there is no guarantee that businesses are keeping crucial information safe and secure, said Sarunas Sereika, product manager at Surfshark, which carried out the research.
In the wrong hands, this data can be used to commit identity theft, via social media, for targeted scams or sold on the dark web - where they're traded for further illegal use.
Since 2004, the UK has been the worst-hit country in Northern Europe, with 369.9 million compromised user accounts. A total of 79.4 million unique emails were breached, indicating that the average British person has been affected by data breaches around five times.
The UK's biggest incident involved the leak of 32,272,135 billion unique British emails in an underground forum by a hacker known as Addka72424.
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