Apollo Global reveals data breach after hackers target financial firms

Apollo Global Management, a prominent private equity firm, has announced a data breach where hackers obtained sensitive personal information from their cloud systems. This incident occurred a month after security researchers alerted the public about a new hacking campaign primarily targeting financial institutions and private equity companies.

In a letter to California's attorney general, Apollo confirmed the breach, which transpired between July 6 and July 10. The hackers exploited a social engineering attack to infiltrate the company's cloud environment. They managed to obtain names, birth dates, contact details (including home addresses), and Social Security numbers from the stolen information.

The letter does not explicitly disclose whether the data belonged to Apollo employees or individuals connected to the companies it manages, valued at $938 billion in assets under management. Following the disclosure, Apollo's spokesperson, Giovanna Falbo, declined to comment on the incident, refusing to address whether the company paid the hackers a ransom.

As of February 2026, Apollo employed around 5,000 individuals, as per their public regulatory disclosures. The confirmation of this hack arrives weeks after Google researchers warned about similar attacks on private equity firms and financial giants as part of an extensive extortion campaign. Axios reported that Apollo was among the companies targeted, alongside Blackstone, Bridgewater, and Bain Capital, but it remains unclear if any of these firms were successfully breached.

The hackers, known by various aliases such as Falcon, Helix, Pink, and Redact, predominantly use social engineering tactics. They call employees, posing as IT helpdesks or support, in an attempt to obtain their login credentials, including passwords and multi-factor authentication codes. Once inside the corporate network, the hackers steal data and threaten to publish it on their leak site, demanding ransom payments or facing potential publication of the stolen information.