Most leaks come from one of four places: the group head gasket, the drip tray overflowing into the wrong place, a loose water line fitting, or the over-pressure valve doing its job. Three of those are cheap. One is not.
Dry everything, run the machine, and watch. Water tracks along frames and drips somewhere other than its source, so the puddle almost never tells you the truth. Put kitchen paper under each candidate area and see which one wets first.
Water escaping around the portafilter when a shot pulls is a group head gasket. It hardens and shrinks with heat and age, and on a busy site it is a consumable, not a fault. Replacing it is routine service work.
A steady trickle into the drip tray from the exhaust while the machine is idle is usually the expansion or over-pressure valve venting as the boiler heats. That is normal behaviour. Water pooling under the machine when it has not been used at all points to a fitting, a hose or the inlet solenoid, and that needs an engineer before it reaches an electrical component.
Only if the leak is into the drip tray and nowhere near electrics. Water on the floor, water inside the chassis or any leak accompanied by a tripping RCD means switch it off at the mains and stop using it.
That is the group head gasket almost every time. Under nine bars the worn seal cannot hold the portafilter tight and water escapes around the rim.
On a busy site, every six to twelve months. Sites pulling under 50 shots a day can often go longer, but a gasket that has gone hard and shiny is due regardless of the calendar.
Something on the pressurised mains side: an inlet fitting, a hose or the inlet solenoid holding open. Turn the water off at the isolation valve and get an engineer out.
Indirectly. A leaking group loses brew pressure, which gives you fast, thin, under-extracted shots as well as a wet counter.
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