Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (NORSNA1770407892)
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 Northeastern University's Cyber Attack 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 Northeastern University 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 Northeastern University breach identified under incident ID NORSNA1770407892.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Northeastern University's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/northeastern-university, the number of followers: 500780, the industry type: Higher Education and the number of employees: 17530 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 806 and after the incident was 773 with a difference of -33 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 Northeastern University and their customers.
Snapchat users (primarily women and girls) recently reported "Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Mass Snapchat Hacking Scheme Targeting Hundreds of Women", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.
A 27-year-old Illinois man, Kyle Svara, pleaded guilty to federal charges for a hacking campaign that compromised the Snapchat accounts of approximately 600 women and girls.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Snapchat accounts, and exposing Nude or semi-nude images, personal account data, with nearly At least 59 accounts breached (600 targeted) records at risk.
In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through Encouragement for potential victims to come forward.
The case underscores how Guilty plea entered, sentencing pending, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Potential victims encouraged to come forward.
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: Spearphishing via Service (T1566.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating used social engineering tactics to deceive victims into handing over security access codes. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Steal Application Access Token (T1528) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating posed as a Snapchat representative to obtain security access codes and Brute Force: Password Guessing (T1110.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating compromised the Snapchat accounts of approximately 600 women and girls. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating downloading and distributing nude or semi-nude images from breached accounts. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating images sold online or traded on internet forums and Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage (T1567.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating distributed nude or semi-nude images via online platforms. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of data destruction, but images were distributed without consent and Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (10%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of encryption in this incident. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Hide Artifacts: Hidden Files and Directories (T1564.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating distributed images via internet forums, likely concealing origin and Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location (T1036.005) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating posed as a Snapchat representative to deceive victims. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Use Alternate Authentication Material: Application Access Token (T1550.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating used stolen security access codes to breach accounts. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- Northeastern University Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/northeastern-university/incident/NORSNA1770407892
- Northeastern University CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/northeastern-university
- Northeastern University Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/norsna1770407892-northeastern-university-snapchat-cyber-attack-may-2025/
- Northeastern University CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/northeastern-university/history
- Northeastern University CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://therecord.media/illinois-man-pleads-guilty-snapchat-nude-photo-hacks
- 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