The Washington Post Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (WAS1332413111425)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the The Washington Post breach identified under incident ID WAS1332413111425.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of The Washington Post's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/washingtonpost, the number of followers: 1610969, the industry type: Newspaper Publishing and the number of employees: 3708 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 655 and after the incident was 592 with a difference of -63 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 The Washington Post and their customers.

On 12 November 2025, The Washington Post disclosed Data Breach issues under the banner "Washington Post Data Breach Affecting Oracle E-Suite Infrastructure".

The Washington Post disclosed a significant data breach affecting more than 9,700 employees and contractors following an external system compromise targeting its Oracle E-Suite infrastructure.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Oracle E-Suite infrastructure, and exposing True, with nearly 9,720 records at risk.

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, while recovery efforts such as 12 months of complimentary identity protection services (credit monitoring, dark web surveillance, identity theft recovery assistance) continue, and stakeholders are being briefed through Written notifications sent to affected individuals on 2025-11-12; breach notification filed with Maine regulators.

The case underscores how Ongoing (as of disclosure date), teams are taking away lessons such as The incident underscores the importance of robust monitoring, threat detection, and incident response capabilities for organizations managing sensitive systems and employee data. The extended detection window (3.5 months) highlights vulnerabilities in security monitoring and incident detection systems. Securing access to enterprise platforms is critical, especially with expanding remote work and contractor relationships, and recommending next steps like Implement enhanced security monitoring and threat detection systems to reduce the time between breach occurrence and discovery, Strengthen access controls and security measures for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like Oracle E-Suite and Provide identity protection services to affected individuals to mitigate risks of fraud or identity theft, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Affected individuals advised to monitor personal information and utilize provided identity protection services (credit monitoring, dark web surveillance, identity theft recovery).

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 (95%), with evidence including external hacking activity targeting Oracle E-Suite systems, and vulnerabilities in Oracle E-Suite infrastructure exploited by external threat actors. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Account Manipulation (T1098) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating breach remained undetected for 3.5 months suggests potential persistence mechanisms. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating oracle E-Suite infrastructure compromise may involve credential harvesting from enterprise systems. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating high value targets such as Employee and contractor data implies internal reconnaissance. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), with evidence including names, personal identifiers, and additional sensitive information exfiltrated from Oracle E-Suite, and 9,720 individuals (including 31 Maine residents) records compromised. 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%), with evidence including data exfiltration such as true with no mention of encryption during transfer, and identity theft risk such as High (names and personal identifiers exposed) suggests bulk data removal. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating inadequate security monitoring and incident detection capabilities (3.5-month delay) implies possible tampering and Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating prolonged undetected presence suggests log manipulation or evidence removal. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Active Scanning: Scanning IP Blocks (T1595.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating dark web exploitation risk implies potential scanning for further victimization and Malicious Crafted Files with Exploit (T1659) with moderate confidence (65%), supported by evidence indicating vulnerabilities in Oracle E-Suite infrastructure exploited suggests crafted payloads. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.