Harrods Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HAR36101736110725)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Harrods breach identified under incident ID HAR36101736110725.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Harrods's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harrods, the number of followers: 307362, the industry type: Retail and the number of employees: 6699 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 551 and after the incident was 415 with a difference of -136 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 Harrods and their customers.

On 26 September 2025, Harrods disclosed data breach, third-party breach and supply chain attack issues under the banner "Harrods Third-Party Data Breach (September 2025)".

Luxury department store Harrods confirmed that cybercriminals claimed to steal data from up to 430,000 customer records following a third-party IT breach.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting third-party provider system, and exposing customer names, contact details and loyalty card information, with nearly 430,000 records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like third-party system isolation and collaboration with affected provider, and stakeholders are being briefed through customer email notification (2025-09-26), public statement and authority notifications.

The case underscores how ongoing (contained, authorities notified), and recommending next steps like Monitor bank statements and transactions for suspicious activity, Beware of phishing attempts via unexpected texts, calls, or emails and Strengthen third-party vendor security assessments, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering customer notifications and authority reports.

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 Supply Chain Compromise: Compromise Software Dependencies and Development Tools (T1195.002) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including supply chain compromise via third-party IT provider vulnerability, and third-party vulnerability exploited as attack_vector. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified External Remote Services (T1133) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating third-party provider system compromised for sustained access. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including 430,000 customer records stolen (PII, loyalty data, marketing preferences), and data exfiltration such as true. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as true with no mention of encryption, and no details on C2 infrastructure in incident report. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (5%), supported by evidence indicating data encryption such as null (explicitly not used) and Data Theft for Extortion (T1659) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including ransom demanded such as true, ransom paid such as false, and data exfiltration such as true with threat of exposure. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including leveraged third-party provider system (likely cloud/managed service) for access, and supply-chain vulnerability suggests abuse of legitimate provider credentials/systems. Under the Reconnaissance tactic, the analysis identified Phishing for Information: Spearphishing via Service (T1598.003) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including failed direct attack (May 2025) suggests prior recon of Harrods’ defenses, and supply chain target shift implies pivot after initial probing. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.