Equifax Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (EQU5405654110825)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Equifax breach identified under incident ID EQU5405654110825.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Equifax's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/equifax, the number of followers: 269377, the industry type: Financial Services and the number of employees: 17772 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 689 and after the incident was 481 with a difference of -208 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 Equifax and their customers.

A newly reported cybersecurity incident, "an incident", has drawn attention.

Understanding legal responsibilities after a cyberattack is not merely a matter of compliance—it is a crucial aspect of organizational resilience.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing sensitive/personal information, customer/employee data and financial data (GLBA), plus an estimated financial loss of ['potential fines', 'legal fees', 'recovery costs', 'ransom payments (if applicable)', 'reputational damage'].

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, and began remediation that includes risk assessments, employee training and simulated cyberattack drills, while recovery efforts such as cyber insurance claims and system restoration (hypothetical) continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through transparency with regulators (e.g., GDPR 72-hour rule) and stakeholder notifications.

The case underscores how teams are taking away lessons such as Proactive cybersecurity measures (e.g., risk assessments, training) reduce legal/financial exposure, Compliance with regulations (HIPAA, GLBA, GDPR) is critical to avoid penalties and Incident response plans must include legal collaboration and transparent reporting, and recommending next steps like Implement continuous monitoring and regular audits, Develop and test incident response plans with legal/technical teams and Obtain cyber insurance tailored to organizational risks, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering transparency in breach communications and collaboration with legal/technical experts.

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 unpatched vulnerability in its Apache Struts web application framework, and hackers exploited this flaw to gain unauthorized access. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including exfiltrating sensitive personal data of ~147 million consumers, and social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license and credit card details. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including sensitive personal data ... including Social Security numbers, and high-value personal data implies potential credential material in exposed records. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (10%), supported by evidence indicating data breach (note such as no ransomware confirmed, but data misuse implies potential secondary encryption risks) and Resource Hijacking (T1496) with lower confidence (30%), with evidence including disrupted business continuity, and incident response resource allocation. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate confidence (60%), with evidence including unauthorized access (possible use of compromised accounts post-exploit), and negligence in patch management suggests weak account protections and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (50%), with evidence including failing to apply available fixes for over two months despite warnings, and lack of proactive cybersecurity measures. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles (T1098.003) with lower confidence (40%), with evidence including unauthorized access may imply privilege escalation or role manipulation, and high-value personal data suggests sustained access for prolonged exfiltration. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including exfiltrating sensitive personal data of ~147 million consumers, and social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license and credit card details. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.