Comcast Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (COM1764424503)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Comcast breach identified under incident ID COM1764424503.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Comcast's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/comcast, the number of followers: 706769, the industry type: Telecommunications and the number of employees: 60212 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 595 and after the incident was 532 with a difference of -63 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 Comcast and their customers.

Comcast (Xfinity) recently reported "Comcast Data Breach via Former Debt-Collection Vendor (2024)", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that Comcast will pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to resolve an investigation into a 2024 data breach at its former debt-collection vendor, Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS).

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting FBCS (Financial Business and Consumer Solutions) systems, and exposing names, addresses and dates of birth, with nearly 237,000 records at risk, plus an estimated financial loss of $1.5 million (FCC civil penalty).

In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through notification to affected individuals by FBCS.

The case underscores how resolved (FCC settlement reached), teams are taking away lessons such as Importance of post-contractual vendor oversight, Need for explicit data deletion clauses with third-party vendors and Risks of retaining customer data beyond necessary periods, and recommending next steps like Implement stricter vendor data-security audits, even after contract termination, Enforce contractual obligations for timely deletion of customer data by third parties and Enhance monitoring of third-party vendors handling sensitive customer information, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering FBCS notified affected individuals of the breach.

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 Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating cybercriminals had gained unauthorized access to its FBCS systems and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating fBCS continued to store Comcast customer records (potential misuse of retained credentials/data). Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating security questions used for account verification were also compromised and Unsecured Credentials: Private Keys (T1552.004) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating fBCS retained Comcast customer data post-contract (implies potential storage of authentication-related data). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating exposed information included names, addresses, SSNs, account numbers, driver’s license numbers and Data from Information Repositories: Sharepoint or Network Drives (T1213.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating fBCS stored Comcast customer records (implies structured data repositories were targeted). Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration such as true (no specifics on method, but breach involved mass PII extraction). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Manipulation: Data Staging (T1598.003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating fBCS retained data beyond contract termination (implies staging for potential future misuse) and Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of destruction, but data was exposed for identity theft (low confidence, implied risk). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles (T1098.003) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating fBCS retained access to data post-contract (implies potential persistent access mechanisms). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating inadequate security measures at FBCS (implies defenses may have been bypassed/evaded). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.