Forget stolen passwords — this is how hackers are actually breaking into US companies in 2026
In 2026, hackers are increasingly exploiting software vulnerabilities rather than stealing passwords to breach corporate networks. A report indicates that vulnerability exploitation has become the leading method of data breaches, accounting for 31% of incidents. Despite the rising threat, many organizations are slow to patch critical vulnerabilities, leaving their systems exposed for extended periods.
- ▪AI-driven hackers are exploiting software flaws faster than companies can secure their systems.
- ▪For the first time in nearly two decades, exploiting vulnerabilities has overtaken stolen passwords as the primary breach method.
- ▪Only 26% of critical vulnerabilities were fully remediated throughout 2025, with a median patch application time of 43 days.
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/forget-stolen-passwords-this-is-how-hackers-are-actually-breaking-into-us-companies-in-2026 |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 2026 01:30:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T01:32:41.359Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T01:32:41.359Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | -aomvKOrNXDp |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Pro Security Forget stolen passwords — this is how hackers are actually breaking into US companies in 2026 News By Efosa Udinmwen published 26 May 2026 AI-driven hackers exploit vulnerabilities faster than companies secure their systems When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Getty Images / Ronstick) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter AI-powered hackers now exploit software flaws faster than companies can patch systemsMobile phishing scams now outperform traditional email attacks across corporate environments worldwideUnauthorized AI tools are…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechRadar.
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