Target faces fresh alleged data leak, but researchers doubt hacker's claim
A hacker claims to have stolen 8.6GB of Target source code, but researchers suspect it is recycled from a confirmed January breach.
The claim was posted on a new data-leak site that Xpl0itrs created in mid-June, and Target was added earlier this month. The hacker has not shared any sample data to back up the claim.
The skepticism stems from a January 2026 incident in which a different threat actor posted an auction for Target data, creating multiple repositories on Gitea with roughly 860GB of internal code, configuration files and documentation. Target verified that breach.
Xpl0itrs has a history of questionable claims. In June, they teased leaking data from Spotify, the US Department of the Treasury, OpenAI and Trustpilot, but none of those leaks materialized. Earlier, they claimed to have stolen BMW documents, some of which were already publicly available.
TechRadar noted that researchers believe the latest claim may be an attempt to piggyback on the earlier confirmed breach.