Apollo Global Management Confirms Data Breach Amid Wave of Cyberattacks on Financial Giants

Private equity giant Apollo Global Management has confirmed a data breach in which hackers stole a significant amount of personal information from the company’s cloud systems. The announcement comes a month after security researchers warned of a new hacking campaign targeting financial and private equity firms. In a letter filed with California’s attorney general, Apollo’s human resources chief, Matthew Breitfelder, revealed that hackers used a social engineering attack to gain access to the company’s cloud environment between July 6 and July 10, 2026. The stolen data included names, birth dates, contact information (including home addresses), and Social Security numbers. The letter does not specify whose personal information was compromised—whether Apollo employees or individuals at companies it owns. Apollo is one of the world’s largest private equity firms, with $938 billion in assets under management. When reached by TechCrunch, Apollo spokesperson Giovanna Falbo did not immediately provide comment or answer questions about the incident, including whether the company paid a ransom to the hackers. Apollo had approximately 5,000 employees as of February 2026, according to the company’s public regulatory filings. The confirmed breach comes weeks after Google security researchers reported that hackers were targeting private equity companies and financial giants as part of a widespread extortion campaign. Reuters reported that Apollo was among the targeted firms, alongside Blackstone, Bridgewater, Bain Capital, and others, but it was unclear at the time whether any had been successfully breached. Google says the hackers, who operate under various names—Falcon, Helix, Pink, and Redact—rely largely on social engineering attacks. They call employees, pretending to be IT helpdesk or support staff, and trick them into entering passwords and multi-factor authentication codes on spoofed login portals. This gives the hackers access to corporate networks. After stealing data, the hackers extort companies into paying a ransom, threatening to publish the stolen data on their leak sites if demands are not met. Some attacks have netted ransoms of up to $750,000, according to Google. Until 2025, TechCrunch was a subsidiary of Yahoo, an advertising technology company owned by Apollo.

via TechCrunch