World’s Largest Credit Union Leaks 378GB of Data

Cloud Growth and Escalating Risk

Cloud computing has fundamentally reshaped how organizations manage, store, and secure information. The market itself has exploded—growing from $156.4 billion in 2020 to a projected $912.77 billion in 2025. Alongside this surge, global data volumes are skyrocketing. Analysts expect more than 100 zettabytes of information to reside in the cloud by year’s end, accounting for nearly half of the world’s total digital data.

This rapid expansion introduces new challenges. As enterprises migrate applications, workflows, and sensitive data, information becomes increasingly fragmented across multiple accounts, regions, and services. Each repository—whether an Amazon S3 bucket, EBS volume, or EFS share—comes with dozens of configurable options. Missteps in these settings can expose businesses to significant security gaps.

Casmer Labs: Tracking Cloud Breach Trends

Throughout 2025, Casmer Labs, Cloud Storage Security’s internal research division, has observed a worrying trend: cloud storage misconfigurations continue to be a leading cause of large-scale data breaches. Whether due to human error, lack of observability, or insufficient automation, the result is often the same—sensitive cloud resources left publicly accessible and ripe for exploitation.

The Navy Federal Credit Union Exposure

On September 2, 2025, Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU)—the world’s largest credit union lender—was reported to have exposed 378 terabytes of backup data through a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket. The dataset included:

• Usernames and email addresses

• Hashed (obfuscated) passwords

• Encryption keys

• Internal documents, including financial reports and operational playbooks

While investigators confirmed that no plain-text member data was exposed, the risk remains substantial. Even without direct account details, this type of internal information is a goldmine for cybercriminals. Leaked data can fuel phishing campaigns, social engineering attacks, and targeted scams—especially when paired with other compromised datasets.

Alarmingly, this information was accessible via simple open-source tools like GreyHat Warfare, underscoring how little effort was required to uncover such a massive trove.

Protecting Customers and Enterprises from Cloud Misconfigurations

For individual consumers, the advice is clear:

• Change passwords immediately for any NFCU or related accounts.

• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible.

• Review account activity for suspicious logins or transactions.

For enterprises, this breach reinforces the critical need for continuous cloud security hygiene. Recommended actions include:

1. Restrict Public Access & Secure Storage

• Enforce least-privilege access models.

• Continuously monitor and update access permissions.

2. Monitor & Audit Logs in Real Time

• Track all storage access attempts.

• Investigate anomalies proactively.

3. Encrypt Data at Rest & In Transit

• Enable server-side encryption for all cloud storage.

• Use AWS KMS or equivalent tools for robust key management.

4. Automate Security Controls

• Implement automated checks for misconfigurations.

• Leverage solutions with real-time alerts and remediation capabilities.

5. Conduct Ongoing Security Assessments

• Perform penetration testing and compliance reviews.

• Identify weaknesses before attackers do.

6. Build a Security-Aware Workforce

• Train employees on data security, phishing detection, and access protocols.

• Reinforce clear procedures for handling sensitive data.

DataDefender: Purpose-Built for Cloud Storage Protection

Preventing breaches like this requires visibility, automation, and storage-specific security. DataDefender by Cloud Storage Security is designed to stop these incidents before they happen.

With 90+ automated security checks across 11 AWS services, DataDefender helps organizations:

• Discover sensitive data no matter where it resides.

• Eliminate misconfigurations that lead to public exposures.

• Prevent malware and ransomware from entering or spreading in cloud storage.

• Detect and respond to internal and external threats at the storage layer.

Unlike generic cloud security tools, DataDefender focuses directly on storage—the foundation of modern data-driven organizations.

Take Action Now

The Navy Federal Credit Union incident highlights what’s at stake when cloud storage is misconfigured: hundreds of terabytes of sensitive data exposed to the open internet. With cybercriminals actively scanning for these opportunities, every organization must treat cloud storage as a first-class security priority.

👉 Get Started with DataDefender on AWS Marketplace and ensure your most valuable data is continuously monitored, protected, and secured.