Contra Costa County Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (CON1903419111925)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Contra Costa County breach identified under incident ID CON1903419111925.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Contra Costa County's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/contra-costa-county, the number of followers: 21927, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 5101 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 602 and after the incident was 520 with a difference of -82 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 Contra Costa County and their customers.

On 10 May 2023, County of Contra Costa disclosed Data Breach and Phishing issues under the banner "Contra Costa County Data Breach (September 2022)".

The County of Contra Costa experienced a phishing incident in September 2022, where unauthorized parties accessed emails and attachments in two county employee accounts.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting 2 Employee Email Accounts, and exposing Emails and Attachments (likely containing PII), with nearly 15,591 individuals records at risk, plus an estimated financial loss of {'settlement_fund': 'Undisclosed (covers claims up to $5,500 per person + credit monitoring)', 'attorneys_fees': '$150,000 (max)', 'class_representative_award': '$2,500 (max)', 'administration_costs': 'To be determined'}.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, while recovery efforts such as Settlement agreement (compensation + credit monitoring) continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Data breach notification letters (sent ~May 10, 2023).

The case underscores how Resolved (settlement reached), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Settlement notices sent to affected individuals (May 2023).

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 Phishing: Spearphishing Link (T1566.002) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including attack vector such as Email Phishing, and entry point such as Phishing Email (compromised employee accounts) and Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized parties accessed emails and attachments in two county employee accounts. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Phishing for Credentials (T1566.002) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including phishing attack targeting two employee email accounts, and vulnerability exploited such as Human Error (Phishing Susceptibility). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Email Collection: Remote Email Collection (T1114.002) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including unauthorized parties potentially accessed sensitive personal information stored in emails and attachments, and data exfiltration such as Likely (unauthorized access to emails/attachments). Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Email (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including unauthorized parties accessed emails and attachments, and data exfiltration such as Likely (unauthorized access to emails/attachments). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System: Email Collection (T1598.003) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including exposed data led to risks of identity theft and fraud, and personally Identifiable Information (PII) compromised. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.