Apollo Global Management confirms data breach in hack targeting financial giants

Apollo's human resources chief Matthew Breitfelder said in the letter that the hackers used a social engineering attack to gain access to the cloud environment. The stolen data included names, birth dates, contact information such as home addresses, and Social Security numbers. The letter did not specify whether the affected individuals were Apollo employees or people at companies it owns.

Apollo is one of the world's largest private equity firms, with $938 billion in assets under management and about 5,000 employees as of February 2026, according to public regulatory filings. Apollo spokesperson Giovanna Falbo did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's questions, including whether the company paid a ransom.

The breach comes about a month after Google researchers warned that hackers were targeting private equity and financial giants in a widespread extortion campaign. Reuters reported that Apollo was among the companies targeted, along with Blackstone, Bridgewater, Bain Capital and others, though it was unclear then if any had been breached.

Google said the hackers, known by names including Falcon, Helix, Pink and Redact, rely largely on social engineering. They call employees, pretend to be IT helpdesk or support, and trick them into entering passwords and multi-factor authentication codes on spoofed login portals. After stealing data, the hackers extort the companies for ransom, with some payments reaching as high as $750,000, according to Google.