Symantec Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (CISSYMFBIFOR1768715192)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Symantec breach identified under incident ID CISSYMFBIFOR1768715192.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Symantec's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/symantec, the number of followers: 443760, the industry type: Software Development and the number of employees: 12974 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 736 and after the incident was 711 with a difference of -25 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 Symantec and their customers.

On 12 March 2025, a cybersecurity incident called "Medusa Ransomware Surges, Targeting Critical Infrastructure with Double Extortion Tactics" came to light.

The Medusa ransomware operation, tracked by Symantec as *Spearwing*, has claimed nearly 400 victims since its emergence in January 2023, with attacks rising 42% between 2023 and 2024.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing Sensitive data stolen before encryption, plus an estimated financial loss of Ransoms ranging from $100,000 to $15 million.

Formal response steps have not been shared publicly yet.

Overall, the incident is a reminder of why proactive monitoring and strong governance matter.

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 high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting known vulnerabilities in public-facing applications, particularly Microsoft Exchange Server and Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment (T1566.001) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating initial access brokers (commonly use phishing as entry vector). Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell (T1059.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell commands (Base64-encoded to avoid detection) and User Execution: Malicious File (T1204.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating deploying remote management tools like SimpleHelp, AnyDesk, MeshAgent. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified External Remote Services (T1133) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating remote management tools like SimpleHelp, AnyDesk, MeshAgent for persistence and Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating legitimate remote access tools like ConnectWise and PsExec to move undetected. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting vulnerabilities in ConnectWise ScreenConnect (CVE-2024-1709) and Fortinet EMS (CVE-2023-48788) and Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism: Bypass User Account Control (T1548.002) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) technique to disable antivirus. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating bYOVD technique to disable antivirus using KillAV, terminating EDR tools, Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating powerShell commands Base64-encoded to avoid detection, Indicator Removal: Clear Command History (T1070.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating deleting PowerShell command histories, and System Binary Proxy Execution: Rundll32 (T1218.011) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating living-off-the-land techniques (LotL) for undetected execution. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified OS Credential Dumping: LSASS Memory (T1003.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating mimikatz for credential theft and Credentials from Password Stores (T1555) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating navicat for database access (implies credential harvesting). Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified Account Discovery: Domain Account (T1087.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating advanced IP Scanner and SoftPerfect Network Scanner for reconnaissance and Network Service Discovery (T1046) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating advanced IP Scanner and SoftPerfect Network Scanner for reconnaissance. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares (T1021.002) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating pDQ Deploy for lateral movement and payload delivery, PsExec for movement and Exploitation of Remote Services (T1210) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting vulnerabilities in ConnectWise ScreenConnect and Fortinet EMS. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating sensitive data stolen before encryption (double extortion) and Data Staged: Local Data Staging (T1074.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating roboCopy for data exfiltration preparation. Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Ingress Tool Transfer (T1105) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating ligolo and Cloudflared for command-and-control (C2) evasion and Proxy: Internal Proxy (T1090.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating cloudflared for C2 evasion. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating rclone for data exfiltration, double extortion tactics and Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage (T1567.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating rclone commonly used for cloud storage exfiltration. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating data encryption as part of ransomware attack and Inhibit System Recovery (T1490) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware typically disables recovery options. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.