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Analyze » Harvard Alumni Association » HAR22102022112525

Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HAR22102022112525)

The details regarding individual company incidents & reports gives you full view from every side.

Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis

Rankiteo Incident Impact-78
Company Score Before Incident770 / 1000
Company Score After Incident692 / 1000
Company LinkView Harvard Alumni Association Profile
INCIDENT NUMBERHAR22102022112525
Type of Cyber IncidentBreach
ATTACK VECTORphone-based phishing
DATA EXPOSEDemail addresses, telephone numbers, home...
INCIDENT DATE30/04/2025
STATUSongoing

Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis

  • Timeline of Harvard Alumni Association's Breach and lateral movement inside company's environment.
  • Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
  • How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
  • How this cyber incident impacts Harvard Alumni Association Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
  • Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.

Full Incident Analysis Transcript

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Harvard Alumni Association breach identified under incident ID HAR22102022112525.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Harvard Alumni Association's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvard-alumni-assoc, the number of followers: 23190, the industry type: Higher Education and the number of employees: 97 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 770 and after the incident was 692 with a difference of -78 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 Harvard Alumni Association and their customers.

On 25 November 2023, Harvard University disclosed data breach and phishing attack issues under the banner "Harvard University Phone-Based Phishing Attack and Data Breach".

An unauthorized party using a phone-based phishing attack breached databases used by Harvard University's office of Alumni Affairs and Development.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting databases used by Alumni Affairs and Development, and exposing email addresses, telephone numbers and home addresses.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like removed attacker’s access and prevented further unauthorized access, and stakeholders are being briefed through email notifications to University affiliates, dedicated incident website with FAQs and public statements via Harvard Magazine.

The case underscores how ongoing, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering email to University affiliates (2023-11-25) and public statements via Harvard IT communications director.

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.

MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis

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: Voice Phishing (T1566.004) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including phone-based phishing attack breached databases, and attack vector such as phone-based phishing and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating attacker gained access to systems containing personal information via phishing. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including compromised databases may include personal information... email addresses, telephone numbers, home/business addresses..., and databases used by Alumni Affairs and Development accessed. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Command and Control Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as likely (investigation ongoing), and attacker terminated after access; implies data transfer occurred. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data from Cloud Storage (T1530) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including databases used by Alumni Affairs and Development (likely cloud-hosted), and personal data of alumni/donors exposed. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials (T1098.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including attacker maintained access until terminated by Harvard, and no mention of MFA or credential rotation in response. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.

Sources & References