Target Employees Confirm Massive 860GB Source Code Leak Is Real

Talk about a monumental security lapse: American retail giant Target has found its proprietary source code exposed on the dark web, as current and former employees close to the matter confirm the authenticity of the nearly 900GB data leak that has the company (and not mention the cybersecurity world in general) on high alert.

The breach first came to light in early January 2026, when a threat actor published a 14MB preview of stolen repositories on Gitea, a self-hosted software development platform. This sample was merely the tip of the iceberg, serving as an advertisement for a gargantuan 860GB dataset allegedly containing the retailer's core business logic and internal documentation.

While Target initially remained tight-lipped, multiple staff members with direct knowledge of the company’s infrastructure have since verified that the leaked materials, which reference internal development servers, senior engineers by name, and custom CI/CD pipelines, are genuine ...