Apollo Global Management, one of the world's largest private equity firms, has confirmed it suffered a data breach in which hackers stole personal information from its cloud systems. The confirmation, made in a letter to California's attorney general, comes amid a wider hacking campaign targeting private equity and financial giants, underscoring how the sector has become a prime target for extortion-driven cybercriminals.

According to the letter, hackers used a social engineering attack to access Apollo's cloud environment between 6 and 10 July, stealing names, birth dates, home addresses and Social Security numbers. It is unclear whose data was affected, and Apollo did not respond to questions about whether a ransom was paid. Google researchers previously warned that a group using aliases including Falcon, Helix, Pink and Redact had been targeting firms such as Blackstone, Bridgewater and Bain Capital using fake IT helpdesk calls to harvest login credentials, with some ransoms reaching $750,000.