Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (HUNSON1786611692)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of SonicWall's Vulnerability and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts SonicWall Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the SonicWall breach identified under incident ID HUNSON1786611692.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of SonicWall's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sonicwall, the number of followers: 128529, the industry type: Computer and Network Security and the number of employees: 1958 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 100 and after the incident was 100 with a difference of 0 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 SonicWall and their customers.
On 04 August 2025, a cybersecurity incident called "Akira Ransomware Exploits Windows Safe Mode to Bypass Security" came to light.
Akira ransomware operators leveraged Windows Safe Mode with Networking to disable endpoint protections before deploying encryption.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Domain Controller, VPN and Endpoint Devices, and exposing True.
In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like System reboot into normal mode to restore security services, and began remediation that includes Correlation of VPN login spikes with Safe Mode events for early detection.
The case underscores how Completed, teams are taking away lessons such as Exposed remote-access infrastructure, particularly VPNs without MFA, poses significant risks. Safe Mode techniques can bypass security controls, necessitating heightened monitoring for unexpected boot-configuration changes and security service disruptions, and recommending next steps like Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all remote-access services, including VPNs, Monitor for unexpected Safe Mode reboots and security service disruptions and Correlate VPN login spikes with subsequent Safe Mode events to detect intrusions early.
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.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
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 External Remote Services (T1133) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating gained initial access through a credential-spraying attack on an exposed SonicWall SSL VPN and Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating used stolen credentials to log into the VPN. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell (T1059.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating modified the Safe Mode registry to ensure it remained active after a reboot and System Services: Service Execution (T1569.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating installed AnyDesk as a persistent remote-access service. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service (T1543.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating installed AnyDesk as a persistent remote-access service. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Domain Accounts (T1078.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating pivoted via RDP to a domain controller using stolen credentials. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating forced the system into Safe Mode with Networking, disabling Microsoft Defender’s real-time protection and Modify Registry (T1112) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating modified the Safe Mode registry to ensure it remained active after a reboot. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Brute Force: Password Spraying (T1110.003) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating credential-spraying attack on an exposed SonicWall SSL VPN. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified Account Discovery: Domain Account (T1087.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating exported Active Directory data including user accounts, group memberships and Remote System Discovery (T1018) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating mapped the network using exported Active Directory data. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating exported Active Directory data including user accounts, group memberships. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage (T1567.002) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating exfiltrated to an attacker-controlled cloud storage bucket using the tool *s5cmd* and Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Symmetric Encrypted Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating files were archived with WinRAR and exfiltrated. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating encryption attempt at 06 such as 34 UTC failed due to insufficient virtual memory. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- SonicWall Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/sonicwall/incident/HUNSON1786611692
- SonicWall CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/sonicwall
- SonicWall Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/hunson1786611692-sonicwall-huntress-vulnerability-august-2026/
- SonicWall CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/sonicwall/history
- SonicWall CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://cybersecuritynews.com/akira-uses-windows-safe-mode/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf