U.S. Department of Justice Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (USDSOC1768977122)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the U.S. Department of Justice breach identified under incident ID USDSOC1768977122.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of U.S. Department of Justice's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/usdoj, the number of followers: 352659, the industry type: Law Enforcement and the number of employees: 17833 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 758 and after the incident was 699 with a difference of -59 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. Department of Justice and their customers.

On 16 January 2024, Social Security Administration (SSA) disclosed Data Breach issues under the banner "DOJ Corrects Record on Unauthorized Sharing of Sensitive Social Security Data".

The U.S.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing Sensitive government data.

In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through DOJ filed corrections in court.

The case underscores how Ongoing, teams are taking away lessons such as Highlights vulnerabilities in federal data handling amid interagency conflicts and the risks of unauthorized data sharing via unsecured servers.

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 (T1078) with high confidence (90%), supported by evidence indicating dOGE employees detailed to the SSA shared sensitive government data. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Web Service (T1567) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating shared sensitive government data via an unsecured third-party server and Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized transfer of sensitive information risks broad exposure. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Cloud Instance Metadata API (T1552.005) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating access to sensitive data via unsecured third-party server. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified NTFS File Attributes (T1564.004) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating sSA remains uncertain about what specific data was exposed and Disabling Security Tools (T1089) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating violating agency security protocols. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Information Repositories (T1213) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating sensitive government data, potentially including PII, was shared. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating no clear record of who accessed the data or what was compromised. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.