Office for Budget Responsibility Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (OFF4794147112625)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Office for Budget Responsibility breach identified under incident ID OFF4794147112625.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Office for Budget Responsibility's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/office-for-budget-responsibility, the number of followers: 1703, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 52 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 759 and after the incident was 684 with a difference of -75 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 Office for Budget Responsibility and their customers.

On 06 November 2024, HM Treasury (UK Government) disclosed Data Leak / Unauthorized Disclosure issues under the banner "UK Government Budget Leak Incident (2024)".

The UK government's 2024 budget details, including a £26 billion tax-raising plan, were leaked online by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) 30 minutes before Treasury chief Rachel Reeves' official announcement in the House of Commons.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) website, and exposing Budget fiscal forecasts, Tax policy details (e.g., income tax threshold freezes, mansion tax, capital gains tax changes) and Welfare policy changes (e.g., child benefit restrictions lifted).

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like OBR removed prematurely published content; issued public apology, and began remediation that includes OBR pledged internal review; report to Treasury and relevant authorities, and stakeholders are being briefed through Rachel Reeves labeled the leak 'deeply disappointing and a serious error' in Parliament and OBR issued a public statement attributing the leak to a 'technical error'.

The case underscores how Ongoing (OBR internal review announced), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Rachel Reeves' statement in House of Commons; OBR public apology.

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 Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including vulnerability exploited such as Technical error (premature website publication), and systems affected such as Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) website. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including data compromised such as Budget fiscal forecasts, Tax policy details, Economic growth projections, and sensitivity of data such as High (national economic strategy; market-sensitive information). Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol: Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as No (data published prematurely on OBR website, not stolen), file types exposed such as PDF (likely), HTML/web content, and type such as Data Leak / Unauthorized Disclosure. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exhaustion (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including operational impact such as Disrupted controlled budget announcement; political fallout..., and brand reputation impact such as High (government credibility undermined...) and Data Destruction (T1485) with moderate confidence (60%), with evidence including containment measures such as OBR removed prematurely published content, and impact such as Disrupted market expectations, risked insider trading. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including vulnerability exploited such as Technical error (premature website publication), motivation such as Accidental (no malicious intent confirmed), and implied misuse of internal publishing system credentials/workflow. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.