Dartmouth College Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (DAR1195211112625)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Dartmouth College breach identified under incident ID DAR1195211112625.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Dartmouth College's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dartmouth-college, the number of followers: 130595, the industry type: Higher Education and the number of employees: 6301 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 788 and after the incident was 650 with a difference of -138 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 Dartmouth College and their customers.

On 11 November 2025, Dartmouth College disclosed Data Breach and Ransomware Attack issues under the banner "Dartmouth College Data Breach (August 2025)".

Dartmouth College confirmed a data breach in August 2025 that compromised names, Social Security numbers, and financial account information of over 35,000 individuals.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Oracle E-Business Suite, and exposing Names, Social Security numbers and Financial account information, with nearly 35,000+ records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public notice to victims, media statements, free identity theft protection enrollment (deadline: 2026-02-28).

The case underscores how Completed (as of public disclosure), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Public notice to 35,000+ affected individuals, media statements.

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 high confidence (95%), with evidence including exploitation of zero-day vulnerability in Oracle E-Business Suite, and attack targeted a widely used enterprise system, leveraging the same Oracle vulnerability. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified OS Credential Dumping: Security Account Manager (T1003.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating compromised names, Social Security numbers, and financial account information (implies access to credential stores). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including files taken between 2025-08-09 and 2025-08-12, and compromised names, Social Security numbers, and financial account information. 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 (85%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as Yes (files taken between 2025-08-09 and 2025-08-12), and clop publicly claimed responsibility on its leak site in November 2025. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware attack (though Clop focused on extortion, not encryption per description), Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (20%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration (no explicit mention of destruction, but implied risk), and Data Theft (T1659) with high confidence (100%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as Yes (files taken...), clop ransomware gang... data extortion rather than encryption, and compromised SSNs, financial account information of over 35,000 individuals. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating exploitation of zero-day vulnerability (may have leveraged valid sessions post-exploit) and Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating clop ransomware gang... data extortion (implies evasion to avoid detection during exfiltration). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.