Penn Admissions Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (PEN3732337111225)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Penn Admissions breach identified under incident ID PEN3732337111225.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Penn Admissions's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/penn-admissions, the number of followers: 2269, the industry type: Higher Education and the number of employees: 8 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 574 and after the incident was 475 with a difference of -99 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 Penn Admissions and their customers.

On 05 November 2023, University of Pennsylvania disclosed Data Breach issues under the banner "University of Pennsylvania Data Breach".

The University of Pennsylvania confirmed a massive data breach on November 5, exposing the personal information of students, alumni, staff, and community affiliates.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Development and Alumni Activity Systems, and exposing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Banking Details, with nearly 1.2 million records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Locked down affected systems, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public disclosure, email notifications to affected parties.

The case underscores how Concluded (breach confirmed, systems secured), teams are taking away lessons such as Enforce multifactor authentication (MFA) across all accounts and implement stricter access controls to mitigate social engineering risks, and recommending next steps like Enable MFA for all user accounts, Conduct regular security awareness training and Monitor for unauthorized access attempts, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Emails sent to affected community members.

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: Spearphishing Link (T1566.002) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating social engineering scam, fraudulent emails... impersonating the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating compromised systems linked to the university’s development and alumni activities. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating lack of multifactor authentication (MFA) on certain accounts was identified as a key vulnerability and Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell (T1059.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized access and data theft (implied post-compromise activity). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating stolen data includes PII and banking details, some dating back decades. 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 (85%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration such as true, 1.2 million records exposed. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Phishing for Information: Spearphishing Service (T1598.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating fraudulent emails were sent to members of the Penn community and Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating systems locked down post-breach (implied disruption, but no explicit destruction). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating compromised systems linked to development/alumni activities (abuse of legitimate accounts) and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating lack of MFA (exploited missing security controls). Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Credentials (T1098.003) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating compromised systems linked to development/alumni activities (potential credential reuse). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.