Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (QANWESHAW1768393070)
The details regarding individual company incidents & reports gives you full view from every side.
Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of WestJet's Breach and lateral movement inside company's environment.
- Overview of affected data sets, including SSNs and PHI, and why they materially increase incident severity.
- How Rankiteo’s incident engine converts technical details into a normalized incident score.
- How this cyber incident impacts WestJet Rankiteo cyber scoring and cyber rating.
- Rankiteo’s MITRE ATT&CK correlation analysis for this incident, with associated confidence level.
Full Incident Analysis Transcript
In this Rankiteo incident briefing, we review the WestJet breach identified under incident ID QANWESHAW1768393070.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of WestJet's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/westjet, the number of followers: 250874, the industry type: Airlines and Aviation and the number of employees: 8745 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 561 and after the incident was 503 with a difference of -58 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 WestJet and their customers.
On 26 June 2025, Hawaiian Airlines disclosed Cyber Attack and Data Breach issues under the banner "Cyber Attacks on Airlines Ahead of Fourth of July Holiday".
Multiple airlines, including Hawaiian Airlines, WestJet, and Qantas, reported cyber attacks compromising their IT systems ahead of the Fourth of July holiday travel surge.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting IT Systems, and exposing True.
In response, teams activated the incident response plan, moved swiftly to contain the threat with measures like True, and began remediation that includes True, and stakeholders are being briefed through True.
The case underscores how Ongoing, with advisories going out to stakeholders covering True.
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.
MITRE ATT&CK® Correlation Analysis
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 Supply Chain Compromise (T1195) with high confidence (90%), with evidence including third-party customer service platform was compromised, and third-party vendor exploits, Trusted Relationship (T1199) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits to breach large organizations, and Phishing (T1566) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating scattered Spider known for using social engineering. Under the Execution tactic, the analysis identified User Execution (T1204) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating social engineering to breach large organizations. Under the Persistence tactic, the analysis identified Trusted Relationship (T1199) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits to breach large organizations. Under the Privilege Escalation tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits imply compromised accounts. Under the Defense Evasion tactic, the analysis identified Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits imply use of legitimate access and Use Alternate Authentication Material (T1550) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating social engineering and third-party vendor exploits. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Modify Authentication Process (T1556) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits imply credential manipulation and Brute Force (T1110) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating social engineering may precede credential attacks. Under the Discovery tactic, the analysis identified Account Discovery (T1087) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating targeting large organizations via third-party vendors. Under the Lateral Movement tactic, the analysis identified Remote Services (T1021) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating third-party vendor exploits imply lateral movement. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating iT systems compromised, data breach implied. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating data breach impacting airlines, FBI investigation. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Defacement (T1491) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating brand reputation impact noted and Service Stop (T1489) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating operational impact reported. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- WestJet Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/westjet/incident/QANWESHAW1768393070
- WestJet CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/westjet
- WestJet Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/qanweshaw1768393070-qantas-westjet-hawaiian-airlines-breach-june-2025/
- WestJet CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/westjet/history
- WestJet CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://skift.com/2025/07/02/airlines-hit-by-cyber-attacks-in-recent-days-heres-what-to-know/
- Rankiteo A.I CyberSecurity Rating methodology: https://www.rankiteo.com/Images/rankiteo_algo.pdf
- Rankiteo TPRM Scoring methodology: https://static.rankiteo.com/model/rankiteo_tprm_methodology.pdf