2.5 Billion Email Users Urged To Change Password — Act Now

Billions of Gmail and Outlook users are at risk due to a surge in email attacks, prompting both major email platforms to urge their users to change their passwords immediately.

You may have heard the warning before: hackers are coming for your email account password. It's a valuable commodity on the dark web, after all. But what if a well-respected threat response unit told you that those attacks targeting user credentials and authentication mechanisms now account for nearly 60% of identity-based attacks in 2025? Or that email account compromise cases have spiked by more than 60% year-on-year?

Major email platforms Gmail and Outlook, which together account for over 2.5 billion active users, are taking notice. They want you to change your password – and do so now. Here's what you need to know and do.

A Growing Threat Landscape

A July 7 identity threat report from the eSentire Threat Response Unit has confirmed what many of us in the cybersecurity industry already knew: email accounts are under attack. And how.

"TRU's threat data presents a stark reality," the report's introduction said, "identity-driven threats have increased by 156% between 2023 and 2025, now representing 59% of all confirmed threat cases during Q1 2025." This surge is being driven by Cybercrime-as-a-Service, and more precisely Phishing-as-a-Service, offerings that attackers can hire for as little as $200 per month.

No wonder, then, that email compromise has increased by 60%, and more than 40% of all attacks this year so far have involved account takeover or compromise, according to eSentire's analysis. Your password is no longer good enough, dear reader, to protect you and your email account from the onslaught of increasingly sophisticated and devastating hack attacks.

A Shift to Passkeys

Both Google and Microsoft have been urging all users to adopt passkey alternatives for some months now. Passkeys are effortless to create and use, automatically generated with no room for human error and nothing to remember.

So, what are you waiting for? It's time to act now and secure your email account.