MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Following a massive data breach affecting 200 companies, the hacking group Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters has issued a surprising demand: they will pay the victims to take the data back.

The breach, which Google confirmed involved Salesforce customer data accessed through Gainsight, was originally intended as a high-stakes extortion scheme. However, after reviewing the stolen files, the cybercriminals realized they had mostly acquired calendar invites for “pre-planning syncs” and “brainstorming touch-bases.”

“We expected passwords or trade secrets,” said a hacker known as ‘BitCrusher’, the group’s Vice President of Illegal Activities. “Instead, we have 40 terabytes of spreadsheets tracking who is bringing napkins to the holiday party. It is actually painful to read. We are the victims here.”

The group claims the stolen data is so boring it violates international human rights laws. They have struggled to find buyers on the dark web, as other criminals refuse to purchase transcripts of two-hour video calls about changing the font size on a quarterly report.

“This is a brilliant new form of defense,” said Marcus Thorne, Director of Corporate Dullness at a leading security firm. “Companies have made their internal work so incredibly uninteresting that stealing it is now a punishment. The hackers are literally dying of boredom.”

At publishing time, the hackers offered to fix the security holes for free if the companies promised to stop scheduling 4:30 PM meetings on Fridays.

Inspired by actual events.