The Washington Post Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (WAS3504935110825)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the The Washington Post breach identified under incident ID WAS3504935110825.

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 789 and after the incident was 698 with a difference of -91 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 07 November 2025, The Washington Post disclosed Data Breach, Ransomware Attack and Supply-Chain Attack issues under the banner "Washington Post Data Breach Linked to Clop Ransomware Exploiting Oracle E-Business Suite Vulnerabilities".

The Washington Post confirmed it fell victim to a data breach orchestrated by the Clop ransomware gang, which exploited vulnerabilities in Oracle’s E-Business Suite software.

The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Oracle E-Business Suite, and exposing Potential Internal Data, Financial Records (speculated) and Operational Data (speculated).

In response, teams activated the incident response plan, and stakeholders are being briefed through Public Statement via Media Outlets (Reuters, TechCrunch).

The case underscores how Ongoing (Limited Details Disclosed), teams are taking away lessons such as Supply-chain vulnerabilities in widely used enterprise software (e.g., Oracle E-Business Suite) can cascade across hundreds of organizations, Proactive vulnerability management and third-party risk assessments are critical for mitigating large-scale breaches and Multi-factor authentication and auditing of Oracle installations are recommended to prevent similar exploits, and recommending next steps like Immediate patching of Oracle E-Business Suite vulnerabilities, Enhanced monitoring of third-party software dependencies and Implementation of multi-factor authentication for enterprise systems, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Public Statements via Media (Reuters, TechCrunch).

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 exploiting vulnerabilities in **Oracle’s E-Business Suite**—a widely used enterprise software, and zero-Day Exploit in Oracle E-Business Suite and Supply Chain Compromise: Compromise Software Supply Chain (T1195.002) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including part of a **large-scale supply-chain campaign** targeting hundreds of organizations globally, and supply-Chain Compromise under attack_vector. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts (T1078.004) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating oracle Cloud Infrastructure Flaw (from March 2025 breach) implies potential abuse of cloud accounts. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating exploiting vulnerabilities in Oracle’s E-Business Suite (likely elevated privileges in enterprise software). Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating clop’s tactics combining **data exfiltration, ransom demands, and dark-web data sales** (implies evasion of detection) and Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating delayed Patching or Lack of Vulnerability Awareness suggests defenders were bypassed. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate to high confidence (75%), supported by evidence indicating enterprise Financial/Operational Data access suggests potential credential harvesting from Oracle systems. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified File and Directory Discovery (T1083) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating potential Internal Data, Financial Records implies reconnaissance for high-value files. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including internal financial or operational records targeted for exfiltration, and 6 million records were exfiltrated (March 2025 Oracle breach). 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, ransom demands, and dark-web data sales, and data exfiltration such as Confirmed (Clops Modus Operandi). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Encrypted for Impact (T1486) with moderate to high confidence (70%), with evidence including ransomware Attack type listed, and clop (CL0P) Ransomware Gang (known for encryption + exfiltration) and Data Destruction (T1485) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating ransomware Attack may include partial data destruction (speculative). Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services: SSH (T1021.004) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating oracle E-Business Suite (enterprise-wide access suggests lateral movement potential). Under the Command and Control tactic, the analysis identified Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols (T1071.001) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating dark-web data sales implies C2 over standard web protocols (e.g., Tor). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.