Incident Score: Analysis & Impact (WHS1780791918)
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Rankiteo Score Impact Analysis
Key Highlights From The Incident Analysis
- Timeline of WHSmith'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 WHSmith 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 WHSmith breach identified under incident ID WHS1780791918.
The analysis begins with a detailed overview of WHSmith's information like the linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/whsmith, the number of followers: 91711, the industry type: Retail and the number of employees: 5686 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 671 and after the incident was 613 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 WHSmith and their customers.
WH Smith recently reported "WH Smith Cyber-Attack Targeting Employee Data", a noteworthy cybersecurity incident.
UK-based retailer WH Smith has confirmed a cyber-attack that compromised personal data belonging to current and former employees.
The disruption is felt across the environment, affecting Employee data systems, and exposing Personal data of current and former employees, including names, addresses, National Insurance numbers, and dates of birth.
In response, and stakeholders are being briefed through Notifying affected staff and implementing support measures.
The case underscores how Ongoing.
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 Valid Accounts (T1078) with moderate confidence (60%), supported by evidence indicating employee data systems targeted, suggesting access via compromised credentials and Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating retail sector prime target; no specific vector disclosed. Under the Credential Access tactic, the analysis identified Credentials from Password Stores (T1555) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating national Insurance numbers and personal data compromised and OS Credential Dumping (T1003) with moderate confidence (50%), supported by evidence indicating high-sensitivity employee data accessed. Under the Collection tactic, the analysis identified Data from Local System (T1005) with moderate to high confidence (80%), supported by evidence indicating personal data...compromised via employee data systems and Data from Information Repositories (T1213) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating names, addresses, National Insurance numbers exposed. Under the Exfiltration tactic, the analysis identified Exfiltration Over C2 Channel (T1041) with moderate to high confidence (70%), supported by evidence indicating data breach confirmed; exact exfiltration method undisclosed and Transfer Data to Cloud Account (T1537) with lower confidence (40%), supported by evidence indicating retail sector often targeted for cloud-based exfiltration. Under the Impact tactic, the analysis identified Data Destruction (T1485) with lower confidence (30%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of data destruction; included due to breach impact and Data Manipulation: Transmitted Data Manipulation (T1565.002) with lower confidence (20%), supported by evidence indicating no evidence of data manipulation; speculative. These correlations help security teams understand the attack chain and develop appropriate defensive measures based on the observed tactics and techniques.
Sources & References
- WHSmith Rankiteo Cyber Incident Details: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/whsmith/incident/WHS1780791918
- WHSmith CyberSecurity Rating page: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/whsmith
- WHSmith Rankiteo Cyber Incident Blog Article: https://blog.rankiteo.com/whs1780791918-wh-smith-breach-march-2023/
- WHSmith CyberSecurity Score History: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/whsmith/history
- WHSmith CyberSecurity Incident Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64823923
- 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