- ShinyHunters breached Panera Bread and stole 14 million customer data records
- Actual impact close to 5.1 million users, with unique emails, names, phone numbers and addresses exposed
- Attack linked to Microsoft Entra SSO compromise, part of broader vishing campaign targeting Okta, Microsoft and Google SSO
The recent cyberattack against Panera Bread, in which sensitive customer data was stolen, is now believed to have affected many more users than initially thought.
When ShinyHunters broke into Panera Bread, they stole 14 million customer records, not data on 14 million customers, but Have I Been Fooled? Researchers now believe the number of people actually affected is closer to 5.1 million, after analyzing the type of information leaked on the dark web.
“In January 2026, Panera Bread suffered a data breach that exposed 14 million records”, Have I Been Fooled? explained. “After an extortion attempt failed, the attackers publicly posted the data, which included 5.1 million unique email addresses along with associated account information such as names, phone numbers, and physical addresses.”
Abuse Enter SSO
The culprits behind the attack are the infamous ShinyHunters ransomware group, which added Panera Bread to its data breach site, claiming to have captured 760 MB of compressed data that included people’s names, addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers.
shinyHunters said they entered Panera through Microsoft Sign-in single sign-on (SSO). If that’s true, then this incident is likely related to Okta’s warning from recent times, when the company said it saw cybercriminals targeting Okta, Microsoft, and Google SSO codes through a sophisticated voice phishing campaign.
Panera Bread has also officially confirmed to have been a victim of attackers.
ShinyHunters is one of the most active ransomware groups at the moment and one of the first to stop using an encryptor completely. Instead of encrypting victims’ systems, it simply extracts data and demands payment for it. It is easier and cheaper to run, but performs just as well.
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