Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (OPE1767958502)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of OpenAI'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 OpenAI 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 OpenAI breach identified under incident ID OPE1767958502.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of OpenAI's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/openai, the number of followers: 9569287, the industry type: Research Services and the number of employees: 6888 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 691 and after the incident was 688 with a difference of -3 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 OpenAI and their customers.
OpenAI recently reported "ZombieAgent Prompt Injection Vulnerability in OpenAI's ChatGPT Apps Feature", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.
Radware discovered 'ZombieAgent,' a prompt injection flaw in OpenAI's ChatGPT 'apps' feature, allowing hidden commands to exfiltrate or propagate data.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting ChatGPT with 'apps' feature enabled (Gmail, cloud storage, calendars, etc.), and exposing Sensitive data (emails, calendar details, cloud storage files).
In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Patch deployed by OpenAI on December 16, 2025, and began remediation that includes Fix for ZombieAgent vulnerability (details undisclosed).
The case underscores how Resolved (patched by OpenAI), teams are taking away lessons such as Prompt injection vulnerabilities in GenAI tools can lead to severe data exfiltration and persistence risks. Hidden or obfuscated commands in external data sources (emails, files) pose significant threats when integrated with AI assistants, and recommending next steps like Implement strict input validation for AI integrations with external services, Monitor for anomalous behavior in AI-assisted workflows and Educate users on risks of hidden prompts in emails/files.
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 Attachment (T1566.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating malicious prompts in files requiring user upload (one-click server-side attack) and Phishing: Spearphishing Link (T1566.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating malicious prompts in emails (zero-click server-side attack). Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified User Execution: Malicious File (T1204.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating malicious prompts in files executed by ChatGPT upon user upload and Command and Scripting Interpreter: JavaScript (T1059.007) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating hidden commands in emails/files executed by ChatGPT (GenAI integration). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task (T1053.005) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating commands stored in ChatGPT’s memory for prolonged access (persistence). Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control (T1548.002) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access to sensitive services (email, cloud storage) via AI integration. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Obfuscated Files or Information: Steganography (T1027.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating hidden commands in white text/zero-font formatting in emails/files and Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (T1140) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating chatGPT executed obfuscated prompts without user awareness. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Steal Application Access Token (T1528) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access to email, cloud storage, and calendar data via AI integration. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Email Collection: Local Email Collection (T1114.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating emails compromised via malicious prompts in ChatGPT integrations and Data from Local System (T1005) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating cloud storage files and calendar events exfiltrated via hidden commands. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration triggered before user views content (zero-click attack) and Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating sensitive data exfiltrated via AI-assisted workflows (e.g., email/calendar integrations). Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Lateral Tool Transfer (T1570) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating worm-like propagation via infected emails or files (propagation method). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- OpenAI Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/openai/incident/OPE1767958502
- OpenAI CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/openai
- OpenAI Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/ope1767958502-openai-vulnerability-december-2025/
- OpenAI CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/openai/history
- OpenAI CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/this-zombieagent-zero-click-vulnerability-allows-for-silent-account-takeover-heres-what-we-know
- 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