Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (CISSAI1773859283)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of Cisco's Vulnerability and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts Cisco Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Cisco breach identified under incident ID CISSAI1773859283.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Cisco's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cisco, the number of followers: 7281720, the industry type: Software Development and the number of employees: 95370 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 321 and after the incident was 320 with a difference of -1 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 Cisco and their customers.
On 04 March 2026, Davita disclosed Ransomware issues under the banner "Interlock Ransomware Exploited Zero-Day in Cisco Firewall Before Patch".
Ransomware group Interlock exploited a maximum-severity zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2026-20131) in Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center more than a month before the vendor released a patch.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, hospital systems, government entities, and exposing 43 GB (Saint Paul, Minnesota incident).
In response, and began remediation that includes Cisco released patches on March 4, 2026.
The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as Zero-day vulnerabilities can be exploited before patches are available, highlighting the need for proactive threat detection and redundant security measures, and recommending next steps like Apply Cisco patches immediately, monitor for unusual activity, implement network segmentation, and enhance incident response plans for ransomware attacks.
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.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
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 Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating exploited a maximum-severity zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2026-20131) in Cisco Secure Firewall. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell (T1059.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting system details (OS, hardware, services, software), Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript (T1059.007) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating custom remote access trojans (RATs) in JavaScript providing persistent access, Command and Scripting Interpreter: Java (T1059.005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating custom remote access trojans (RATs) in Java providing command execution, and Command and Scripting Interpreter: Bash (T1059.004) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating bash script configuring Linux servers as reverse proxies, wiping logs. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Server Software Component: Web Shell (T1505.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating custom RATs in JavaScript/Java providing persistent access, Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service (T1543.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating rATs providing persistent access, likely as services, and Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder (T1547.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating redundant backdoors to maintain access even if one is detected. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating flaw allowed unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary Java code as root. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: Clear Command History (T1070.003) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating bash script wiping logs, Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location (T1036.005) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating legitimate tools like ConnectWise ScreenConnect, Volatility, and Certify, Process Injection: Process Hollowing (T1055.012) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating memory-resident backdoors to evade detection, and Hide Artifacts: Hidden Window (T1564.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating lightweight network beacons to evade detection. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified OS Credential Dumping: LSASS Memory (T1003.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting system details, likely including credentials and Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting user files, RDP logs, and browser data. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified System Information Discovery (T1082) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting OS, hardware, services, software, storage, VM inventory, File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting user files, and Remote System Discovery (T1018) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating rATs providing SOCKS5 proxy capabilities for network discovery. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: Remote Desktop Protocol (T1021.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting RDP logs, ConnectWise ScreenConnect usage and Proxy: External Proxy (T1090.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating bash script configuring Linux servers as reverse proxies. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell script harvesting user files, browser data, and system details and Data from Information Repositories: Sharepoint (T1213.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating sensitive personal data, medical records, government data compromised. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating rATs providing command execution and file transfer capabilities, Proxy: External Proxy (T1090.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating bash script configuring Linux servers as reverse proxies, and Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography (T1573.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating lightweight network beacons to evade detection, likely encrypted. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating 43 GB data breach (Saint Paul incident), data exfiltration confirmed and Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage (T1567.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating sensitive data leaked, likely exfiltrated to attacker-controlled storage. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware encryption confirmed, disrupting critical services, Defacement: Internal Defacement (T1491.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating ransom notes threatening regulatory exposure, and Inhibit System Recovery (T1490) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware encryption likely inhibits system recovery. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Cisco Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco/incident/CISSAI1773859283
- Cisco CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco
- Cisco Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/cissai1773859283-cisco-city-of-saint-paul-minnesota-vulnerability-january-2026/
- Cisco CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/cisco/history
- Cisco CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/18/amazon_cisco_firewall_0_day_ransomware/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf