Workday, the HR software giant serving 70 million users worldwide, just confirmed hackers breached one of its third-party customer databases and made off with personal information including names, emails, and phone numbers. The breach, discovered August 6, follows a coordinated wave of attacks targeting Salesforce-hosted databases that has hit Google, Cisco, and other major enterprises in recent weeks.
Workday just became the latest casualty in what security experts are calling a coordinated assault on enterprise cloud databases. The HR technology giant confirmed hackers penetrated one of its third-party customer relationship databases, stealing an undisclosed amount of personal information that could affect its 70 million users across 11,000+ corporate customers worldwide.
The timing couldn't be worse for enterprise security teams. According to Bleeping Computer's reporting, Workday discovered the breach on August 6 – right in the middle of an unprecedented wave of attacks targeting Salesforce-hosted customer databases. In recent weeks, Google, Cisco, Qantas, and retailer Pandora have all reported similar breaches affecting their cloud-based customer data stores.
What makes this breach particularly concerning is Workday's careful wording around customer impact. In a blog post published late Friday, the company stated there was "no indication of access to customer tenants or the data within them" – but notably didn't rule out that customer information was compromised. Those customer tenants typically house the bulk of HR files and sensitive employee data that make such a attractive target for cybercriminals.
