U.S. Government Publishing Office Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (U.S1593515111825)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the U.S. Government Publishing Office breach identified under incident ID U.S1593515111825.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of U.S. Government Publishing Office's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/u.s.-government-printing-office, the number of followers: 5708, the industry type: Government Relations Services and the number of employees: 1261 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 756 and after the incident was 696 with a difference of -60 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 U.S. Government Publishing Office and their customers.

U.S. Federal Agencies (General) recently reported "Risks and Challenges of Government Agencies Transitioning to Paperless Systems", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

The incident highlights the security and compliance risks federal agencies face when transitioning from paper-based to digital processes.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Email Systems, Legacy Document Storage and Third-Party Vendor Platforms, and exposing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Sensitive Government Documents (e.g., Social Security claims, tax forms), plus an estimated financial loss of Potential high costs from breaches (fines, remediation, legal fees).

In response, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like Adoption of Document Automation with Redaction, Implementation of Access Controls (Privacy Walls) and Restriction of Third-Party Vendor Access, and began remediation that includes Migration to Federally Compliant Platforms (e.g., Salesforce CRM), Deployment of Native Encryption/Redaction Tools and Regular Security Training and Compliance Drills, while recovery efforts such as Establishment of Data Governance Boards, Continuous Monitoring of Remote Work Devices and Phased Replacement of Static Documents with Secure Digital Workflows continue.

The case underscores how Ongoing (general risk assessment for federal agencies), teams are taking away lessons such as Legacy paper-based processes introduce critical security gaps when digitized without proper controls, Employee training and data governance are essential to mitigate human error and insider threats and Third-party vendors must adhere to the same compliance standards as federal agencies, and recommending next steps like Adopt federally compliant platforms (e.g., Salesforce CRM) with native security features, Implement flexible access controls, privacy walls, and redaction for sensitive documents and Conduct regular security training and compliance drills for all employees, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Federal CISOs, IT directors, and data governance teams should prioritize secure digital transformation strategies.

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 Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating exploited weak access controls—either by intercepting emails with sensitive attachments or accessing improperly secured shared drives, Phishing: Spearphishing Link (T1566.002) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating intercepting emails with sensitive attachments implies phishing or email compromise, and Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor vulnerabilities (e.g., contractor using non-compliant cloud storage). Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating unencrypted Word/PDF files containing PII and weak access controls imply credentials stored insecurely and Credentials from Password Stores: Credentials from Web Browsers (T1555.003) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating employees using unsecured Wi-Fi increases risk of credential theft via browser storage. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation: Additional Cloud Roles (T1098.003) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor vulnerabilities could enable persistent cloud account manipulation. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating weak access controls and improperly secured shared drives suggest privilege abuse. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating lack of encryption, insufficient training implies disabled or bypassed security tools and Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with moderate confidence (55%), supported by evidence indicating mishandled static documents could involve deletion of logs or audit trails. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating unredacted, static digital documents containing PII were accessed and Automated Collection (T1119) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating email attachments and shared drives suggest automated scraping of sensitive files. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.003) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating employees using unsecured Wi-Fi and third-party vendor vulnerabilities enable unencrypted exfiltration, Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Asymmetric Encrypted Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.002) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating lack of encryption in static documents may mask exfiltration via encrypted channels (e.g., email), and Automated Exfiltration: Traffic Duplication (T1020.001) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating data exfiltration such as Potential (via hackers, insider threats, or third-party breaches) suggests automated methods. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Cloud Service Dashboards: Cloud Storage Object Access (T1538.003) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating contractor using non-compliant cloud storage implies unauthorized access to cloud dashboards and Data Destruction (T1485) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating mishandled static documents *could* include deletion, though not explicitly confirmed. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares (T1021.002) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating improperly secured shared drives suggests lateral movement via SMB or similar protocols and Remote Services: SSH (T1021.004) with moderate confidence (55%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor vulnerabilities may involve SSH access for lateral movement. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.