Google warns hackers stealing Salesforce data

A hacking group has been impersonating IT personnel to break into companies' Salesforce tools, using the access for data theft and extortion, according to a new report from Google's threat intelligence group.

- Bloomberg

The hackers, which have links to a loosely affiliated group of hackers largely based in the US, UK, and Western Europe called the Com, successfully breached the networks of at least 20 companies in the US and Europe, Google said.

They operate by calling up employees and pretending to be IT support personnel, convincing them to provide sensitive credentials and using that to steal Salesforce data, Google said in the report published Wednesday. In some cases, the hacker was able to fool an employee into connecting a malicious app to their organization's Salesforce portal, allowing the hacker to steal Salesforce data.

Some victims didn't receive an extortion demand in exchange for the deletion of the data until months after it was stolen, according to the report.