Washington State Department of Corrections Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (WAC5232552110825)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Washington State Department of Corrections breach identified under incident ID WAC5232552110825.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Washington State Department of Corrections's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wacorrections, the number of followers: 7114, the industry type: Public Safety and the number of employees: 2246 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 767 and after the incident was 681 with a difference of -86 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 Washington State Department of Corrections and their customers.

State Department of Corrections (DOC) recently reported "Unintentional Disclosure of Protected Health Information by State Department of Corrections", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

More than 1,700 individuals had their protected health information (PHI) mistakenly released by the state’s Department of Corrections (DOC) while responding to a public records request.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing Names, Mental Health Diagnoses and Other Sensitive Protected Health Information (PHI), with nearly 1,700+ records at risk.

In response, and began remediation that includes Notification of Affected Individuals, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public Acknowledgment of Breach.

The case underscores how Discovered (September 2023), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Notifications Sent to Affected Individuals.

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 Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration Over Unencrypted/Obfuscated Non-C2 Protocol (T1048.001) with moderate to high confidence (85%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as Yes (Unintentional Disclosure via Public Records Request), and vulnerability exploited such as Human Error (Improper Handling of Public Records Request). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including type of data compromised such as Protected Health Information (PHI), Names, Mental Health Diagnoses, and number of records exposed such as 1,700+. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including legal liabilities such as HIPAA Violation, and brand reputation impact such as Potential Damage (HIPAA Violation Acknowledged), Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with lower confidence (0%), Data Manipulation (T1659) with lower confidence (0%), Resource Hijacking (T1496) with lower confidence (0%), Service Stop (T1489) with lower confidence (0%), Firmware Corruption (T1495) with lower confidence (0%), Inhibit System Recovery (T1490) with lower confidence (0%), Defacement: Internal Defacement (T1491.002) with lower confidence (0%), Network Denial of Service: Reflection Amplification (T1498.002) with lower confidence (0%), Endpoint Denial of Service: Application Exhaustion Flood (T1499.004) with lower confidence (0%), Endpoint Denial of Service: OS Exhaustion Flood (T1499.001) with lower confidence (0%), Endpoint Denial of Service: Service Exhaustion Flood (T1499.002) with lower confidence (0%), and Endpoint Denial of Service: Application or System Exploitation (T1499.003) with lower confidence (0%). Under the Initial Access tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Local Accounts (T1078.003) with moderate to high confidence (75%), with evidence including vulnerability exploited such as Human Error (Improper Handling of Public Records Request), and root causes such as Human Error in Handling Public Records Request. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.