Internal Revenue Service Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (BOOIRSUS-1769454012)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Internal Revenue Service breach identified under incident ID BOOIRSUS-1769454012.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Internal Revenue Service's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/irs, the number of followers: 365225, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 48949 employees

After the initial compromise, the video explains how Rankiteo's incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score. The incident score before the incident was 801 and after the incident was 689 with a difference of -112 which is could be a good indicator of the severity and impact of the incident.

In the next step of the video, we will analyze in more details the incident and the impact it had on Internal Revenue Service and their customers.

On 01 January 2024, U.S. Department of the Treasury disclosed Data Breach issues under the banner "Treasury Cancels Booz Allen Hamilton Contracts After Massive Tax Data Leak".

The U.S.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting IRS tax record systems, and exposing Sensitive tax records, with nearly 406,000 records at risk, plus an estimated financial loss of $21 million (total contract obligations).

In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Termination of contracts, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public statement by Treasury Secretary.

The case underscores how Completed (sentencing of threat actor), teams are taking away lessons such as Need for improved safeguards and monitoring of contractors with access to sensitive data, and recommending next steps like Enhance insider threat detection, implement stricter access controls, and conduct regular audits of contractor activities, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Public statement by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Finally, we try to match the incident with the MITRE ATT&CK framework to see if there is any correlation between the incident and the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

The MITRE ATT&CK framework is a knowledge base of techniques and sub-techniques that are used to describe the tactics and procedures of cyber adversaries. It is a powerful tool for understanding the threat landscape and for developing effective defense strategies.

Rankiteo's analysis has identified several MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques associated with this incident, each with varying levels of confidence based on available evidence. Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Trusted Relationship (T1199) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, who worked for Booz Allen. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating littlejohn intentionally sought the contractor role to access Trump’s tax returns. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating using his technical skills to extract data without detection and Data from Information Repositories (T1213) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating breach exposed records belonging to approximately 406,000 individuals. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating provided stolen tax data to *The New York Times* and *ProPublica* and Exfiltration Over Web Service (T1567) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating disclosing confidential tax records...to media outlets. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of data destruction, but breach described as unparalleled and Defacement (T1491) with lower confidence (20%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of defacement, but public disclosure impacted trust. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating used his technical skills to extract data without detection and Hide Artifacts (T1564) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating littlejohn...extracted data without detection (2018-2020). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.