A statement claims that Cyber haven, a data loss prevention company, was breached.

 A statement claims that Cyber haven, a data loss prevention company, was breached.

FILE PHOTO: This illustration image, which was captured on May 13, 2017, shows a projection of cyber code on a hooded guy. Kacper Pempel/REUTERS/Illustration/File Photo.

The data-protection company Cyber haven said in a statement sent to clients and seen by Reuters that hackers had compromised one of its employees and used the employee's access to possibly acquire private data from the company's users.

 According to the statement, early on Wednesday, the hackers distributed a hacked version of Cyberhaven's Chrome browser extension to its users. Customers that were impacted were advised by the organization to change their passwords and check their logs for fraudulent activity. 

 When Cyber haven disseminated the statement, it was unclear. A request for comment was not immediately answered by the California-based business, which counts well-known legal firms and IT organizations among its clients.

Jaime Blasco, cofounder of Nudge Security, based in Austin, Texas, said the hackers did not target just Cyber haven. According to Blasco, he found multiple other Chrome extensions that have been compromised using comparable code after looking at the hack details provided by Cyber haven.

 Internet users usually utilize browser extensions to personalize their surfing experiences, such as automatically adding coupons to e-commerce sites. The Chrome plugin was utilized by Cyber haven to help the business safeguard and track customer data as it moved across web-based apps.

According to Blasco, extensions pertaining to virtual private networks and artificial intelligence were among the other extensions impacted. That implied an opportunistic attempt to use as many compromised extensions as possible to remove sensitive data, he added. 

"I'm almost certain this is not targeted to Cyber haven," added Blasco. "If I had to guess, this was just random."