Hack Tech

>> Case Study: The Equifax Breach (2017)

One of the most significant breaches in history, the Equifax hack exposed the personal data of nearly 150 million people. The cause was a failure to patch a known vulnerability in the Apache Struts web application framework. Attackers exploited this weakness to gain access to sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses.

LESSON: Timely patching of known vulnerabilities is not optional—it is a critical security control.

>> Case Study: The SolarWinds Attack (2020)

A sophisticated supply chain attack where hackers, believed to be state-sponsored, compromised the software build process of SolarWinds' Orion Platform. Malicious code was inserted into legitimate software updates, which were then distributed to thousands of customers, including government agencies and major corporations. This gave attackers a backdoor into numerous high-value networks.

LESSON: Supply chain security is paramount; trust in software vendors must be verified continuously.

>> Case Study: Pegasus Surveillance of Civil Society (2024)

Investigators in the United Kingdom confirmed that Pegasus spyware, authored by NSO Group, re-emerged in infrastructure touching the Post Office Horizon inquiry. Targeted lawyers and journalists experienced mobile zero-click exploitation that enabled camera, microphone, and message collection. Rapid carrier coordination and mobile endpoint detection and response (EDR) deployments curtailed persistence, while evidence collection informed a public watchdog report.

LESSON: Mobile threat hunting must extend beyond device hardening—carrier telemetry, rapid handset rotation, and diplomatic pressure are critical when mercenary spyware surfaces.

>> Playbook Integration: Data Breach Incident Response

Bridge the gap between historical lessons and hands-on response by referencing the open-source Data Breach Incident Response playbook. The repository packages runnable detection scripts, sample evidence, and automation to rehearse the first hours of a breach.

• Validate evidence: Review the provided examples/sample_log.txt file to understand the indicators that trigger the workflow.
• Run detection locally: Execute python scripts/detect_breach.py to parse the logs and generate example_output.txt containing alerts for suspicious authentication attempts.
• Automate containment: Follow the Ansible recipe with ansible-playbook -i automation/inventory automation/ansible_playbook.yml -K to practice rapid hardening tasks that follow the initial detection.

Treat this as a dry run: swap in logs from your environment, update the inventory with sandbox systems, and rehearse the notification flow so the next breach response is muscle memory.