Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HIKDAH1772677469)
The details regarding individual company incidents & reports gives you full view from every side.
Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of Hikvision MEA's Vulnerability 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 Hikvision MEA 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 Hikvision MEA breach identified under incident ID HIKDAH1772677469.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Hikvision MEA's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hikvision-mea, the number of followers: 196658, the industry type: Information Technology & Services and the number of employees: 317 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 761 and after the incident was 756 with a difference of -5 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 Hikvision MEA and their customers.
On 28 February 2025, Hikvision disclosed Cyber Espionage, Reconnaissance issues under the banner "Iranian Hackers Exploit Surveillance Cameras in Middle East Ahead of Potential Attacks".
Since February 28, Iranian-linked hacking groups have targeted internet-connected surveillance cameras in Israel and other Middle Eastern nations.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Hikvision and Dahua IP cameras, and exposing Live camera feeds, potential target assessments.
In response, and began remediation that includes Patching vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-7921, CVE-2021-36260, CVE-2023-6895, CVE-2025-34067, CVE-2021-33044).
The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as Unpatched vulnerabilities in IoT devices (e.g., IP cameras) can be exploited for strategic reconnaissance. Heightened cyber activity may precede kinetic attacks, and recommending next steps like Patch known vulnerabilities in Hikvision and Dahua cameras immediately, Monitor for unusual activity on surveillance networks and Segment critical infrastructure from IoT devices, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Governments and organizations in the Middle East should assess their surveillance infrastructure for potential compromise and apply patches.
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 Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities in Hikvision and Dahua IP cameras and Exploitation of Remote Services (T1210) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating cVE-2021-36260 (command injection), CVE-2023-6895 (OS command injection). Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating cVE-2021-36260 (command injection), CVE-2023-6895 (OS command injection) and Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating cVE-2025-34067 (remote code execution). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified External Remote Services (T1133) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating compromised cameras used for reconnaissance over extended periods. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating cVE-2017-7921 (authentication bypass), CVE-2021-33044 (authentication bypass). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Disable or Modify System Firewall (T1562.004) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating use of commercial VPNs (Mullvad, ProtonVPN, Surfshark, NordVPN) and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating authentication bypass vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-7921, CVE-2021-33044). Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Brute Force: Password Guessing (T1110.001) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating hundreds of exploitation attempts against vulnerabilities. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified Gather Victim Network Information (T1590) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating live camera feeds used for target assessments ahead of missile strikes and File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating compromised cameras likely scanned for strategic reconnaissance. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Archive Collected Data (T1560) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating live surveillance footage collected for battle damage assessments and Screen Capture (T1113) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating compromised street camera facing Weizmann Institute before missile strike. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating use of commercial VPNs and virtual private servers for attack infrastructure and Encrypted Channel (T1573) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating vPNs (Mullvad, ProtonVPN) used to mask malicious traffic. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating live camera feeds likely exfiltrated for reconnaissance purposes. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating potential disruption of surveillance systems during kinetic strikes. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Hikvision MEA Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/hikvision-mea/incident/HIKDAH1772677469
- Hikvision MEA CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/hikvision-mea
- Hikvision MEA Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/hikdah1772677469-hikvision-dahua-vulnerability-march-2026/
- Hikvision MEA CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/hikvision-mea/history
- Hikvision MEA CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/iranian_hacking_attempts_ip_cameras/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf