London North Eastern Railway Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (LON0893608111125)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the London North Eastern Railway breach identified under incident ID LON0893608111125.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of London North Eastern Railway's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/london-north-eastern-railway, the number of followers: 38968, the industry type: Rail Transportation and the number of employees: 1113 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 624 and after the incident was 561 with a difference of -63 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 London North Eastern Railway and their customers.

Dentsu (Merkle) recently reported "Dentsu (Merkle) Data Breach Compromising LNER’s Customer Data", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

Dentsu’s security incident within Merkle’s network led to unauthorized access to files containing customer contact details and journey information for LNER (London North Eastern Railway).

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Merkle’s network (Dentsu subsidiary), and exposing Customer contact details (LNER), Previous journey information (LNER) and Bank/payroll details (Dentsu employees).

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Systems taken offline and Incident response protocols initiated, while recovery efforts such as Systems brought back online (Merkle) continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Press release by LNER (September 2023), Direct notifications to affected Dentsu employees (October 2023) and Media alerts to LNER customers.

The case underscores how Ongoing (as of October 2023), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering LNER customers advised to be cautious of unsolicited communications and Dentsu employees offered credit/dark-web monitoring.

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 moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating third-Party Vendor Compromise via Merkle (Dentsu subsidiary) network breach and Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access to files managed by Merkle (third-party supplier). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access to files containing customer contact details and journey information (LNER) and Data from Network Shared Drive (T1039) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating files managed by its third-party supplier, Merkle exposed PII/financial data. 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 (80%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration such as true with no mention of encryption/ransomware and Automated Exfiltration (T1020) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating high-volume PII/financial data (salaries, NI numbers) likely exfiltrated systematically. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Phishing for Information: Spearphishing via Service (T1598.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating lNER warned customers about potential unsolicited communications (phishing risks) and Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating some systems taken offline as a precaution (no confirmation of destructive actions). Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating access to files managed by Merkle may have included unsecured credentials (though no passwords confirmed exposed). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating no direct evidence, but systems taken offline suggests potential tampering with logs/artifacts and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating incident response protocols initiated implies possible prior defense impairment (speculative). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials (T1098.003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access to third-party (Merkle) cloud-managed files suggests potential credential persistence. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.