Minneapolis Public Schools Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (MIN1765304983)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Minneapolis Public Schools breach identified under incident ID MIN1765304983.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Minneapolis Public Schools's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/minneapolis-public-schools, the number of followers: 17099, the industry type: Education Administration Programs and the number of employees: 6301 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 669 and after the incident was 518 with a difference of -151 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 Minneapolis Public Schools and their customers.

On 01 February 2025, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) disclosed Ransomware issues under the banner "Medusa Ransomware Impact on Critical Infrastructure Sectors".

CISA revealed that the Medusa ransomware operation has impacted over 300 organizations in critical infrastructure sectors in the United States as of February 2025.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Critical infrastructure systems across multiple sectors, and exposing True.

In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Network segmentation, traffic filtering, and began remediation that includes Patching known vulnerabilities.

The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as Importance of patching known vulnerabilities, network segmentation, and filtering network traffic to prevent lateral movement and ransomware attacks, and recommending next steps like Mitigate known security vulnerabilities by patching operating systems, software, and firmware in a timely manner, Segment networks to limit lateral movement between infected and other devices and Filter network traffic by blocking access from unknown or untrusted origins to remote services on internal systems, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering CISA, FBI, and MS-ISAC encourage organizations to implement recommended mitigations to reduce the likelihood and impact of Medusa ransomware incidents.

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 Phishing (T1566) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating initial Access Brokers (IABs) mentioned as attack vector, Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting Known Vulnerabilities, unpatched software/firmware, and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating initial Access Brokers (IABs) often provide compromised credentials. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified User Execution: Malicious File (T1204.002) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model implies payload execution. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating initial Access Brokers (IABs) may establish persistent access. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities for privilege escalation. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware typically encrypts/obfuscates files to evade detection and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware often disables security tools during encryption. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating initial Access Brokers (IABs) provide compromised credentials. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware scans for files to encrypt/exfiltrate and Network Service Scanning (T1046) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating lateral movement requires network/service discovery. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation of Remote Services (T1210) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting vulnerabilities for lateral movement and Remote Services: Remote Desktop Protocol (T1021.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating common method for lateral movement in ransomware attacks. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration confirmed in incident details. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol (T1071) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware typically uses C2 channels for coordination. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration confirmed, Medusa Blog leak site used. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with high confidence (100%), supported by evidence indicating data encryption confirmed in ransomware details and Service Stoppage (T1489) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating disruption of services in affected organizations. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.