Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (ROY1833318112625)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea breach identified under incident ID ROY1833318112625.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/royal-borough-of-kensington-and-chelsea, the number of followers: 21962, the industry type: Government Administration and the number of employees: 1983 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 735 and after the incident was 714 with a difference of -21 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 Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and their customers.

On 24 November 2023, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) disclosed Cyber Attack issues under the banner "Cyber Attack on London Local Authorities Affects IT Systems".

At least two London local authorities, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and Westminster City Council, were hit by a cyber attack affecting several of their shared IT systems.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting IT systems (shared between RBKC and Westminster City Council) and Potential impact on London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, while recovery efforts such as Restoring affected IT systems continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public statement on RBKC website and Media coverage (e.g., Sky News).

The case underscores how Ongoing (investigating whether data was compromised), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Public statement acknowledging the incident and assuring continuity of critical services.

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 cyber attack affecting several of their shared IT systems, and disrupting multiple IT systems shared between the two authorities and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT systems implies potential abuse of shared/valid credentials. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate confidence (50%), with evidence including disruption to IT systems (possible ransomware or destructive attack implied), and no immediate evidence of data theft suggests focus on disruption and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including disrupting multiple IT systems, and activation of business continuity and emergency plans. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating investigations are ongoing to determine if any data was compromised (possible log/trace tampering). Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: Windows Admin Shares (T1021.006) with moderate confidence (60%), with evidence including shared IT infrastructure between RBKC, Westminster, and Hammersmith & Fulham, and potential impact on London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating enhanced monitoring of emails and phone lines (suggests C2 over common protocols). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.