A wave of information breaches impacting firms like Qantas, Allianz Life, LVMH, and Adidas has been linked to the ShinyHunters extortion group, which has been utilizing voice phishing assaults to steal information from Salesforce CRM cases.
In June, Google’s Menace Intelligence Group (GTIG) warned that risk actors tracked as UNC6040 had been concentrating on Salesforce prospects in social engineering assaults.
In these assaults, the risk actors impersonated IT help workers in cellphone calls to focused staff, making an attempt to influence them into visiting Salesforce’s linked app setup web page. On this web page, they had been advised to enter a “connection code”, which linked a malicious model of Salesforce’s Knowledge Loader OAuth app to the goal’s Salesforce setting.
In some circumstances, the Knowledge Loader part was renamed to “My Ticket Portal,” to make it extra convincing within the assaults.
Immediate to enter connection code
Supply: Google
GTIG says that these assaults had been often performed by means of vishing (voice phishing), however credentials and MFA tokens had been additionally stolen by means of phishing pages that impersonated Okta login pages.
Across the time of this report, a number of firms reported information breaches involving third-party customer support or cloud-based CRM techniques.
LVMH subsidiaries Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany & Co. every disclosed unauthorized entry to a buyer info database, with Tiffany Korea notifying prospects the attackers breached a “vendor platform used for managing buyer information.”
Adidas, Qantas, and Allianz Life additionally reported breaches involving third-party techniques, with Allianz confirming it was a third-party buyer relationship administration platform.
“On July 16, 2025, a malicious risk actor gained entry to a third-party, cloud-based CRM system utilized by Allianz Life Insurance coverage Firm of North America (Allianz Life),” an Allianz Life spokesperson advised BleepingComputer.
Whereas BleepingComputer has discovered that the Qantas information breach additionally concerned a third-party buyer relationship administration platform, the corporate won’t affirm it’s Salesforce. Nevertheless, earlier reporting from native media claims the info was stolen from Qantas’ Salesforce occasion.
Moreover, courtroom paperwork state that the risk actors focused “Accounts” and “Contacts” database tables, each of that are Salesforce objects.
Whereas none of those firms have publicly named Salesforce, BleepingComputer has since confirmed that every one had been focused in the identical marketing campaign detailed by Google.
The assaults haven’t led to public extortion or information leaks but, with BleepingComputer studying that the risk actors are trying to privately extort firms over e mail, the place they identify themselves as ShinyHunters.
It’s believed that when these extortion makes an attempt fail, the risk actors will launch stolen info in a protracted wave of leaks, much like ShinyHunter’s earlier Snowflake assaults.
Who’s ShinyHunters
The breaches have induced confusion among the many cybersecurity group and the media, together with BleepingComputer, with the assaults attributed to Scattered Spider (tracked by Mandiant as UNC3944), as these risk actors had been additionally concentrating on the aviation, retail, and insurance coverage sectors across the identical time and demonstrated related ways.
Nevertheless, risk actors related to Scattered Spider are likely to carry out full-blown community breaches, culminating with information theft and, typically, ransomware. ShinyHunters, tracked as UNC6040, alternatively, tends to focus extra on data-theft extortion assaults concentrating on a selected cloud platform or internet software.
It’s BleepingComputer’s and a few safety researchers’ perception that each UNC6040 and UNC3944 include overlapping members that talk inside the identical on-line communities. The risk group can also be believed to overlap with “The Com,” a community of skilled English-speaking cybercriminals.
“In keeping with Recorded Future intelligence, the overlapping TTPs between recognized Scattered Spider and ShinyHunters assaults point out seemingly some crossover between the 2 teams,” Allan Liska, an Intelligence Analyst for Recorded Future, advised BleepingComputer.
Different researchers have advised BleepingComputer that ShinyHunters and Scattered Spider seem like working in lockstep, concentrating on the identical industries on the identical time, making it tougher to attribute assaults.
Some additionally consider that each teams have ties to risk actors from the now-defunct Lapsus$ hacking group, with stories indicating that one of many lately arrested Scattered Spider hackers was additionally in Lapsus$.
One other idea is that ShinyHunters is performing as an extortion-as-a-service, the place they extort firms on behalf of different risk actors in trade for a income share, much like how ransomware-as-a-service gangs function.
This idea is supported by earlier conversations BleepingComputer has had with ShinyHunters, the place they claimed to not be behind a breach, however simply performing as the vendor of the stolen information.
These breaches embody PowerSchool, Oracle Cloud, the Snowflake data-theft assaults, AT&T, NitroPDF, Wattpad, MathWay, and lots of extra.
ShinyHunters leaking making an attempt to promote AT&T information breach
Supply: BleepingComputer
To muddy the waters additional, there have been quite a few arrests of individuals linked to the identify “ShinyHunters,” together with those that have been arrested for the Snowflake data-theft assaults, breaches at PowerSchool, and the operation of the Breached v2 hacking discussion board.
But even after these arrests, new assaults happen with firms receiving extortion emails stating, “We’re ShinyHunters,” referring to themselves as a “collective.”
Defending Salesforce cases from assaults
In an announcement to BleepingComputer, Salesforce emphasised that the platform itself was not compromised, however reasonably, prospects’ accounts are being breached by way of social engineering.
“Salesforce has not been compromised, and the problems described should not resulting from any recognized vulnerability in our platform. Whereas Salesforce builds enterprise-grade safety into all the pieces we do, prospects additionally play a important function in conserving their information secure — particularly amid an increase in subtle phishing and social engineering assaults,” Salesforce advised BleepingComputer.
“We proceed to encourage all prospects to comply with safety greatest practices, together with enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA), implementing the precept of least privilege, and punctiliously managing linked functions. For extra info, please go to: https://www.salesforce.com/weblog/protect-against-social-engineering/.”
Salesforce is urging prospects to strengthen their safety posture by:
Implementing trusted IP ranges for logins
Following the precept of least privilege for app permissions
Enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Limiting use of linked apps and managing entry insurance policies
Utilizing Salesforce Protect for superior risk detection, occasion monitoring, and transaction insurance policies
Including a delegated Safety Contact for incident communication
Additional particulars on these mitigations will be present in Salesforce’s steering linked above.
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