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Analyze » Harvard Alumni Association » HAR3692736112225

Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HAR3692736112225)

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

Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis

Rankiteo Incident Impact-62
Company Score Before Incident639 / 1000
Company Score After Incident577 / 1000
Company LinkView Harvard Alumni Association Profile
INCIDENT NUMBERHAR3692736112225
Type of Cyber IncidentBreach
ATTACK VECTORphone-based phishing
DATA EXPOSEDdonation records, event attendance records,...
INCIDENT DATE21/11/2025
STATUSOngoing (with third-party cybersecurity experts and law enforcement)

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 HAR3692736112225.

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 639 and after the incident was 577 with a difference of -62 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 22 November 2025, Harvard University disclosed data breach and phishing attack issues under the banner "Harvard University Alumni Affairs and Development Office Data Breach via Phone-Based Phishing Attack".

An unauthorized party accessed information systems used by Harvard’s Alumni Affairs and Development Office via a phone-based phishing attack.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Alumni Affairs and Development Office information systems, and exposing donation records, event attendance records and email 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, while recovery efforts such as launched dedicated breach update webpage continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through email to University affiliates and public webpage with FAQs.

The case underscores how Ongoing (with third-party cybersecurity experts and law enforcement), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Email to University affiliates and Public webpage with FAQs.

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 granted unauthorized access, and attack vector such as phone-based phishing and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating removed attacker’s access implies use of legitimate credentials. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Phishing: Voice Phishing (T1566.004) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating vulnerability exploited such as human error (successful phishing) and Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell (T1059.003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating no direct evidence, but common post-phishing credential dumping method. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including data compromised such as donation records, event attendance records, PII, and high value targets such as alumni/donor databases, event attendance records. 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 (70%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as Unknown (investigation ongoing) implies likely exfiltration occurred, and no evidence of encryption mentioned; phishing often uses unsecured channels. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data from Cloud Storage (T1530) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including alumni Affairs and Development Office information systems likely cloud-hosted, and donation records and event attendance logs suggest structured database access. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating removed attacker’s access suggests use of legitimate credentials to evade detection and Obfuscated Files or Information: Indicator Removal from Tools (T1027.005) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating no logs or specific tools mentioned; common post-compromise cleanup. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.

Sources & References