Sutter Health Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (SUT1765814693)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Sutter Health breach identified under incident ID SUT1765814693.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Sutter Health's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sutter-health, the number of followers: 214387, the industry type: Hospitals and Health Care and the number of employees: 25099 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 689 and after the incident was 640 with a difference of -49 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 Sutter Health and their customers.

Sutter Health recently reported "Sutter Health, Lemonaid Health, & Redeemer Health Settle Pixel Data Breach Lawsuits", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

Settlements have been agreed to resolve class action lawsuits against three healthcare providers – Sutter Health, Lemonaid Health, & Redeemer Health – that alleged unlawful disclosures of individually identifiable patient information to third parties via website tracking techn...

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Websites and Patient Portals, and exposing Personally identifiable health information (PHI), protected health information (HIPAA-protected data), plus an estimated financial loss of {'Sutter Health': '$21,500,000 settlement', 'Lemonaid Health': '$3,250,000 settlement', 'Redeemer Health': None}.

In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through Settlement announcements, legal filings.

The case underscores how Settled (preliminary approval granted, final fairness hearings scheduled), teams are taking away lessons such as Healthcare organizations must ensure compliance with HIPAA when using tracking technologies on authenticated pages (e.g., patient portals). Business associate agreements or HIPAA-compliant authorizations are required for third-party data sharing, and recommending next steps like Review and audit website tracking technologies for compliance with HIPAA and state privacy laws, Obtain HIPAA-compliant authorizations or establish business associate agreements for third-party tracking tools on authenticated pages and Monitor regulatory guidance on tracking technologies and adjust practices accordingly, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Class members notified of settlement terms and claim deadlines.

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%), supported by evidence indicating improper use of tracking technologies on authenticated pages (patient portals). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Information Repositories (T1213) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating transmitted PHI to third parties (Meta, Google) via tracking pixels on patient portals and Data Staged: Local Data Staging (T1074.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating website tracking technologies (pixels, cookies) collected PHI before transmission. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating pHI transmitted to third parties (Meta, Google) without HIPAA-compliant authorizations and Transfer Data to Cloud Account (T1537) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating tracking technologies shared PHI with third-party platforms (e.g., Meta, Google). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating lack of HIPAA-compliant safeguards for tracking technologies on patient portals. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.