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Analyze » HarvardX » HAR1765122916

Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HAR1765122916)

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 Incident768 / 1000
Company Score After Incident690 / 1000
Company LinkView HarvardX Profile
INCIDENT NUMBERHAR1765122916
Type of Cyber IncidentBreach
ATTACK VECTORPhone Phishing
DATA EXPOSEDAlumni, donor, faculty, and student...
INCIDENT DATE17/11/2025
STATUSpublished

Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis

  • Timeline of HarvardX'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 HarvardX 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 HarvardX breach identified under incident ID HAR1765122916.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of HarvardX's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvard-x, the number of followers: 3908, the industry type: Higher Education and the number of employees: 20 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 768 and after the incident was 690 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 HarvardX and their customers.

On 18 November 2025, Harvard University disclosed Data Breach issues under the banner "Harvard University Alumni and Donor Database Breach".

A phone phishing attack tricked someone into giving an unauthorized party access to a Harvard University database tied to alumni, donors, faculty, and some students.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Alumni Affairs and Development information systems, and exposing Alumni, donor, faculty, and student information.

Formal response steps have not been shared publicly yet.

Overall, the incident is a reminder of why proactive monitoring and strong governance matter.

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 (T1566) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating phone phishing attack tricked someone into giving the attacker a way into the system and Phishing: Vishing (T1566.004) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including phone-based phishing attack, and attack vector such as Phone Phishing. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Brute Force (T1110) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating implied access via phishing (human error may involve credential compromise). Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including database... was accessed by an unauthorized party, and data Theft motivation and Automated Exfiltration (T1020) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating large-scale data exposure (alumni/donor records) implies automated access. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Masquerading (T1036) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating phone phishing attack tricked someone (social engineering to bypass defenses). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.

Sources & References