Recovering from the Salesloft Breach: 3 Lessons Learned

During the recent Salesloft breach, hundreds of organizations, including leading tech and security companies, suddenly faced a new risk: Attackers broke into Salesloft’s GitHub repositories and stole OAuth tokens from the Drift integration. These tokens granted access to customer Salesforce accounts, creating a direct path to sensitive business data.

Hundreds of organizations, including some of the most security-conscious companies, suddenly faced exposure. Salesforce responded by disabling the Drift app, and Salesloft followed by shutting it down entirely.

One large enterprise discovered that nearly 1,000 query datasets had been compromised. Suddenly, they lost visibility and control. Their team needed to determine what data was exposed, whether any of it was sensitive, and how to respond quickly. That’s when they turned to Cyera for help through our free scan program.

Here’s what their experience revealed, and how any security team can apply these lessons:

1. Speed and Scale Are Everything:

When data is exposed, timely action is critical. Rapid visibility enables you to regain control more quickly. In this case, Cyera ingested and classified nearly 1,000 stolen datasets, totaling over 4 million files, in just 12 hours. That speed made a real difference. The customer quickly gained the visibility they needed to begin remediation right away.

‍Takeaway: Ensure your incident response process is designed for scalability. Even during a breach, moving quickly helps you understand what is happening, and that awareness lets you regain control.

‍2. Accuracy and Context Matter, Not Just Volume

During the response, both the customer’s internal team and their incident response provider scanned the stolen data using TruffleHog, a trusted open-source tool for detecting secrets and credentials. Both returned the same results.

Then Cyera ran its own scan and found sensitive credentials and tokens that the earlier scans had missed.

“Everyone was using TruffleHog and came back with the same answers. When Cyera scanned the data, we got a different perspective.”
- Head of Cybersecurity at the organization

Takeaway: Focus on precision, not just detection. Understanding exactly what type of data was taken, such as customer records, credentials, or proprietary IP, helps you turn noise into clarity.

3. Verification Turns Speed Into Credibility

After Cyera identified the sensitive data, we connected directly with the SalesForce environment and repeated the scans, confirming every finding.  This verification built confidence. When your response is both fast and verified, you don’t just resolve risk, you reinforce trust.

Takeaway: Transparency can turn a moment of crisis into a moment of credibility.  In this case, the team used Cyera to quickly validate what happened and focus their response. That clarity helped them show stakeholders they were in control and move forward with confidence.

‍Final Reflection

The Salesloft breach offered a valuable lesson for security teams: effective breach response depends not only on swift action, but on a deep understanding of your data.

With Cyera’s data-first approach, the enterprise quickly moved from uncertainty to confidence. By identifying and understanding sensitive data, Cyera revealed important details others missed and provided clear evidence of control when it was needed most.

See what your current tools may be missing. Book a demo to learn how data-first visibility builds confidence when it matters most.

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