Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (ROY5692156112625)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea breach identified under incident ID ROY5692156112625.

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 673 and after the incident was 470 with a difference of -203 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 February 2024, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) disclosed Service Disruption and Potential Ransomware Attack issues under the banner "Cybersecurity Incident Affecting Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster City Council, and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham".

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and Westminster City Council (WCC) announced service disruptions due to a cybersecurity incident.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Phone lines, Online services and Contact center.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Shut down of computerised systems and Isolation and safeguarding of networks (LBHF), while recovery efforts such as Restoring systems and Maintaining critical services continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public statements, Website banners with alternative contact numbers and Updates to residents and partners.

The case underscores how Ongoing (perpetrators and motives under investigation; no confirmation of data compromise), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Updates to residents and partners planned in coming days.

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%), supported by evidence indicating attack targeted shared IT infrastructure (shared service provider likely exploited) and Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT infrastructure (potential abuse of legitimate shared credentials/access). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including identified as a ransomware attack (Kevin Beaumont), and shut down of computerised systems (consistent with ransomware response) and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), with evidence including crippling phone lines, online services, and contact centers, and activation of emergency protocols. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: Remote Desktop Protocol (T1021.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT infrastructure (suggests intra-network movement across councils). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating no ransomware group has claimed responsibility (possible log/trace cleanup). Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Ingress Tool Transfer (T1105) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating shared IT infrastructure (likely used to distribute payloads across councils). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.