Watson Clinic LLP Breach Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (WAT3892838111125)

In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the Watson Clinic LLP breach identified under incident ID WAT3892838111125.

The analysis begins with a detailed overview of Watson Clinic LLP's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/watson-clinic, the number of followers: 6163, the industry type: Medical Practices and the number of employees: 1157 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 449 and after the incident was 320 with a difference of -129 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 Watson Clinic LLP and their customers.

Watson Clinic LLP recently reported "Watson Clinic $10M Data Breach Class Action Settlement", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.

Watson Clinic LLP agreed to pay $10 million to resolve a class action lawsuit arising from a data security incident discovered in February 2024.

The disruption is felt across the environment, and exposing Personal information, Protected health information (PHI) and Medical images, plus an estimated financial loss of $10,000,000 (settlement fund).

In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through Notice letters sent to affected patients; public settlement announcement with claim instructions.

The case underscores how Settled (class action lawsuit resolved; no further details on root cause investigation), with advisories going out to stakeholders covering Notice letters sent to affected patients; public settlement terms published.

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 moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating unauthorized third party gained access (no specifics, but implies abuse of valid credentials or accounts). Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with high confidence (95%), supported by evidence indicating access to and published sensitive patient data and medical images. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol: Exfiltration to Dark Web (T1048.003) with high confidence (100%), with evidence including published sensitive patient data and medical images on the dark web, and data exfiltration such as Yes (data published on the dark web). Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with moderate to high confidence (85%), supported by evidence indicating data published on the dark web (public exposure as a destructive impact) and Data Manipulation (T1495) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating identity theft risks, fraud, or falsified tax returns traceable to the breach. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Unsecured Credentials: Credentials In Files (T1552.001) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating failures in data security protocols (implied weak credential storage/protection). These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.