Government of Kenya Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (GOK3562035111825)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Government of Kenya breach identified under incident ID GOK3562035111825.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Government of Kenya's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gok-government-of-kenya, the number of followers: 770, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 186 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 762 and after the incident was 735 with a difference of -27 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 Government of Kenya and their customers.

On 13 November 2023, Government of Kenya disclosed Defacement, Cyberattack and Website Disruption issues under the banner "Government of Kenya Cyberattack with Defacement and Racist Messages".

The Government of Kenya cyberattack on Monday morning left several ministry websites defaced with racist and white supremacist messages, disrupting access for hours.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Ministry of Interior website, Ministry of Health website and Ministry of Education website.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Securing affected systems and Restoring access to platforms, while recovery efforts such as Continuous monitoring to prevent further disruption continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public statement by Interior Ministry and Encouraging citizens to report relevant information to National KE-CIRT.

The case underscores how Ongoing (suspected group 'PCP@Kenya' under investigation; no formal claim of responsibility), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Citizens encouraged to report relevant information to National KE-CIRT.

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 (85%), with evidence including targeted multiple high-profile Kenyan government ministry websites, and defaced these platforms with racist and white supremacist messages and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating no sensitive financial data or core government systems were compromised (implies possible misuse of legitimate web access). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Defacement: Internal Defacement (T1491.002) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including defaced these platforms with racist and white supremacist messages, and users encountered extremist messages such as We will rise again, White power worldwide and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application Exhaustion Flood (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including disrupting public access for hours, and temporary inaccessibility of public-facing ministry websites. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating no formal claim of responsibility (suggests attempts to evade attribution). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Server Software Component: Web Shell (T1505.003) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating systems restored and placed under continuous monitoring (implies potential backdoor removal). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.