Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (ROY2992429112625)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea breach identified under incident ID ROY2992429112625.

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 767 and after the incident was 699 with a difference of -68 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 13 March 2024, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) disclosed Cyber-Attack (Suspected Ransomware or Disruptive Attack) issues under the banner "Cyber-Attack on Three London Councils (RBKC, Westminster, and Hammersmith & Fulham)".

Three London councils (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster City Council, and Hammersmith & Fulham) reported a cyber-attack affecting shared IT infrastructure.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Phone lines, Council tax billing systems and Parking fine payment systems.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Shut down several computerised systems and Business continuity/emergency plans invoked, and began remediation that includes Security fixes applied (e.g., website fluctuations during updates) and Collaboration with NCSC for system restoration, while recovery efforts such as Engineers worked overnight (2024-03-11 to 2024-03-12) and Focus on restoring critical services continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public statements acknowledging the incident (RBKC, Westminster), Commitment to updates for residents/partners and Apology for service delays (Westminster).

The case underscores how Ongoing (NCA and NCSC involved; cause identified but not disclosed), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Residents advised of potential service delays (RBKC, Westminster) and Updates promised as investigation progresses.

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 (75%), with evidence including systems including phone lines were disrupted (shared IT infrastructure likely targeted), and website (intermittent downtime) suggests web-facing service exploitation and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT infrastructure compromise may imply abused legitimate credentials. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including suspected Ransomware or Disruptive Attack, shut down several computerised systems to contain encryption spread, and parallels to 2020 Hackney attack (440,000 files encrypted) and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including phone lines disrupted, council tax and parking fine payment systems offline, and business continuity/emergency plans invoked. 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 shut down several computerised systems (may indicate attacker disabled security tools or forced admin shutdown). Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: Windows Admin Shares (T1021.006) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT infrastructure across three councils suggests internal network spread. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating website fluctuations during updates may indicate C2 over HTTP/HTTPS. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate confidence (50%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as Under investigation (standard practice), and nCSC collaboration for system restoration implies forensic review for data theft. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.