U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (OPM1461714111725)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach identified under incident ID OPM1461714111725.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)'s information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/opm, the number of followers: 165112, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 5342 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 778 and after the incident was 678 with a difference of -100 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 U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and their customers.

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently reported "2015 Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Data Breach", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

A massive cyberattack in 2015 compromised sensitive personal data of 21.5 million federal employees and others, including Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses, fingerprints, and financial/medical records for 1.1 million individuals.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing Social Security numbers (21.5 million), Birthdates (21.5 million) and Addresses (21.5 million), with nearly 21.5 million (PII); 1.1 million (fingerprints/financial/medical) records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, and began remediation that includes Identity theft monitoring and protection services (legislated via congressional spending bill), and stakeholders are being briefed through Congressional notifications (e.g., Sen. Mark Warner's letter to OPM).

The case underscores how Closed (attribution to China widely accepted but not formally confirmed), teams are taking away lessons such as Lifelong risks from breached biometric/health data highlight the need for sustained identity protection; federal agencies must prioritize long-term remediation over short-term cost-cutting, and recommending next steps like Maintain identity protection services for all 21.5 million affected individuals indefinitely, Enhance federal cybersecurity protocols to prevent future breaches of sensitive personnel data and Conduct regular audits of OPM's data security posture, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Sen. Mark Warner's warning to OPM against discontinuing identity protection services (2024).

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%), supported by evidence indicating inadequate cybersecurity defenses at OPM (2015), Failure to encrypt sensitive personnel data and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating federal employee PII targeted; no MFA or advanced threat detection mentioned. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating failure to encrypt sensitive personnel data (PII/SSNs stored unprotected) and OS Credential Dumping (T1003) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating inadequate cybersecurity defenses suggests potential lateral movement/post-exploitation. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating social Security numbers, fingerprints (1.1M), financial/medical records exfiltrated and Data from Network Shared Drive (T1039) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating 21.5 million individuals PII suggests centralized data repositories targeted. 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 Yes, no encryption mentioned; dark web sales of fingerprints/health records and Automated Exfiltration (T1020) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating scale (21.5M records) suggests automated collection/exfiltration tools. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (5%), supported by evidence indicating no ransomware mentioned, but permanent exposure implies data usability for adversaries and Data Manipulation: Stored Data Manipulation (T1659) with lower confidence (10%), supported by evidence indicating lifelong identity theft risks suggests potential for future misuse of stolen data. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials (T1098.003) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating high-value targets such as Federal employee PII suggests long-term access motives (espionage). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating lack of multi-factor authentication or advanced threat detection implies evasion of weak defenses and Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating dark web sales of highly valuable fingerprints/health records suggest obfuscation for resale. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.