Hackers Are Stealing Companies’ Salesforce Data: Google

If you’re one of Salesforce’s more than 150,000 customers, listen up.

The hackers, who have been linked to a group called “the Com,” have already successfully breached the networks of at least 20 companies in the U.S. and Europe. I Photo: Salesforce Facebook

A hacking group reportedly has been impersonating IT staffers via phone calls to break into the Salesforce instances of various companies in an attempt to steal their data, Fortune Tech reported.

That revelation comes courtesy of Google’s threat intelligence group, which said the hackers’ ultimate aim is extortion.

“This approach has proven particularly effective in tricking employees—often within English-speaking branches of multinational corporations—into actions that grant the attackers access or lead to the sharing of sensitive credentials, ultimately facilitating the theft of organizations’ Salesforce data,” Google added.

The hackers, who have been linked to a group called “the Com,” have already successfully breached the networks of at least 20 companies in the U.S. and Europe.

Sometimes the extortion demands didn’t come until months later, the report adds. Google was quick to note there wasn’t any technical flaw in Salesforce software that allowed this to happen—just good old-fashioned social engineering.