Adobe Cyberattack 2013 Case Study

Abstract

In today’s modern world, the majority of corporate data is kept on computer systems by businesses in the modern world. Trade secrets, customer financial records, and corporate financials are examples of private data that is readily compromised if improperly safeguarded. The increasing sophistication of hackers is leading to an increase in the frequency of major data breaches. Customers, shareholders, staff members and of course, the business itself are all negatively impacted by cyberattacks. This paper examines the 2013 cyberattack that the Adobe Company experienced. With the aid of Adobe software, users can create graphical designs, edit videos, and develop websites. It consists of a group of cloud services and apps. The case study is analyzed in this paper, along with recommendations for how to lessen similar incidents in the future.

Introduction

Adobe Company and Services

Adobe is a leading software company that provides a range of digital solutions to individuals and businesses around the world. With well-known products like Photoshop, Acrobat, Lightroom and InDesign, which are extensively utilized in the creative sector, the company has grown to become a global brand. Adobe provides digital marketing solutions, such as analytics, social media management, and advertising, in addition to its creative suite. Thanks to these resources, Adobe has become a major force in the digital market, with more than 150 million users depending on its software and services.

Security measures

Adobe gathers a wide range of client data. Customers who purchase licensed-based products are required to register them, which entails giving Adobe their email addresses and setting up a username and password for the company website. Some of these clients gave Adobe their credit card numbers, expiration dates, and other payment information since they bought their licenses straight from Adobe online. Customers using Creative Cloud are required to maintain a valid credit card on file with Adobe (In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., 2014). Credit card payments are made automatically based on the customer's subscription plan. Adobe has made security a top priority in order to protect its systems and the private information of its clients. In order to defend against cyberattacks, the organization has put in place a number of security measures, such as multi-factor authentication, encryption methods, and regular security audits. A specialized security team at Adobe also strives to stop and lessen possible security breaches. (Oropesa, 2023)

Cyberattack in 2013

On October 3, 2013, Adobe faced a massive data breach that was one of the biggest security breaches in their history. The attack was initiated by a group of hackers who gained access to Adobe's network and stolen sensitive data about users and adobe company. Adobe first announced that 2.9 million accounts had been compromised, but then disclosed that 38 million and 3.8 GB of data had been taken. This includes names, credentials, contact and details also their credit and debit cards details as well (Case study of Adobe Cyber Attack, 2023). An Adobe security officer disclosed that the majority of Adobe products and services were compromised by hackers, with Acrobat PDF document editing software and the ColdFusion web application being the most heavily targeted. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

Additionally, Adobe disclosed that a portion of the Photoshop source code was pilfered by the hackers. Programmers may be able to examine and replicate the workings of Adobe software with the use of this knowledge. Subsequently, Adobe Systems revealed that, contrary to what was initially stated, 38 million customers' data was really compromised. (Case study of Adobe Cyber Attack, 2023) That making this one of the largest security breaches in recorded history. The database was reflecting the variety of Adobe's clientele.

Upon analysis, the breached database contained 234,379 email addresses belonging to the military and government, along with encrypted passwords and password suggestions. More than two million of the 38 million accounts compromised were connected to educational intuitions overall. Of these, almost 6,000 accounts were from companies that provide defense contracts, including Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and BAE Systems. Additionally, the breach affected 5,000 NASA accounts, 82 NSA accounts, and 433 FBI accounts on the federal side. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

Vulnerabilities that attackers used it against the victims

Vulnerabilities in Password Protection Scheme and Security Protocols

The hackers obtained access to customer data by taking advantage of a number of holes in Adobe's security protocols, including one in the company's password protection scheme. Adobe made it simple to crack passwords. Because Adobe used hashing, which resulted in the user being masked by a mathematical algorithm, it was discovered that one in six passwords were easily cracked. (Dubey, 2014 January 31) It is not clear that the company implemented the necessary level of security to prevent easy password cracking. Along with access to the company's source code and other intellectual property, the attackers took advantage of a flaw in Adobe's ColdFusion web application platform. (Oropesa, 2023) This implies that other security flaws in Adobe's software may have been exploited by the attackers either before or after the attack. An online search was conducted using the hashed password and the corresponding email address to see who else was using the same password. The same password was being used by hundreds of users. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

Most likely, 16-character passwords are no longer able to keep us safe. Because Adobe's password security did not meet industry requirements, hackers were able to take advantage of that. Additionally, the user's password clues were in plain text when it came to the stored passwords. (Dubey, 2014 January 31) The provided hints were extremely flimsy and open to manipulation by outside parties. Passwords for the Adobe account and other websites were easily found with the use of hints.

Move to cloud creates vulnerabilities

Adobe switched to offering software-as-a-service (SaaS) on the cloud in place of desktop licenses between 2011 and 2013. For any software company at the time, it was an inevitable transition, but it left Adobe exposed. An attacker was able to obtain sensitive information from Adobe, including source codes, financial reports, and design blueprints for upcoming products, by taking advantage of these vulnerabilities. In an exclusive interview with CSO News, Adobe CSO Brad Arkin, who was senior director in 2013, said, “We still had all the desktop code, but we were very much a service delivery company." “In the old days, the idea was that product engineering was totally separate from IT security, and that didn’t really hold anymore.” (Arkin, 2018) In this interview he also mentions that weaknesses in the system infrastructure and security system was one of the reasons of that breach. By the process of switching desktop licenses system to SaaS Adobe was fail to identify major vulnerabilities of infrastructure and solve them.

In the Adobe cloud service, Individual browsing habits, device usage information, CRM notes, data from other sources are all gathered by the unified profile. Making targeted marketing, well, more targeted, is the aim. From a security perspective, personally identifiable information (PII) in a to-go bag could theoretically be hacked using the unified profile. This was made easy path for attackers to further perform some social engineering attacks and gain advantages for future attacks. (Arkin, 2018)

Responsible for the incident

Responsibility of Adobe

Since 2006, Adobe has faced several cyberattacks. Their website was always vulnerable, and nothing big was really done by them to stop that. Certainly, Adobe Systems needed the improvement in their cyber security years ago itself. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

• 2007- Adobe Reader bug allowed hackers access to all the files on people's computers.
• 2008- More than 1,000 hacked websites infected computers by delivering fake Flash Player updates that posed as CNN news notifications.
• 2009 - Vulnerability in Reader let hackers open back doors into people's computers.
• 2010- Attackers created malicious PDF attachments to hack into several companies, including Adobe, Google and Rackspace.
• 2011 - Bug gave hackers remote access to people's computers -- this time in Flash Player.
• 2012 -Hackers gained access to Adobe's security verification system by tapping into its internal servers.

Two Adobe systems products, Adobe Flash Player and Acrobat Reader, ranked second among the most susceptible programs among Fortune 500 firms in 2009. Subsequently, Adobe Reader emerged as the most susceptible program on the annual list for 2010. Similar to how Adobe Flash Player was in 2012. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

However, since the 2013 data breach, Adobe has failed to implement proper security mechanisms and make major security improvements to their system.

As a result, nobody should be surprised by the 2013 Adobe Systems security compromise. The widespread use of Adobe products has made them a target for powerful adversaries. At this time, this behavior of Adobe was strongly criticized by VIII security professionals. According to Brian Krebs, an investigating reporter said that it seems Adobe did not put much of the efforts to save their customers precious information. (Dubey, 2014 January 31) The security history of Adobe indicates that the company needs to examine itself closely. Also, Adobe settled a lawsuit brought by 15 state attorneys general for $1 million for their dereliction of their responsibilities.

Attackers

The hacking group behind the 2013 Adobe breach has not been made public, and little is known about their background or the real motivations behind their attack on the corporation. In addition, security researchers have surmised that the attackers were headquartered in Eastern Europe or Russia based on the language and location of some of the underground forums where the stolen data was traded. This is due to the fact that content in multiple underground forums was written in Russian. It is likely that the attackers' intention was to generate money by selling credit card numbers and other valuable information on illicit markets. This is assuming that the stolen data contained such information. Given that the Adobe hack was just one of several high-profile attacks that occurred at the time, it's probable that the attackers had a history of concentrating their efforts on well-known companies or websites. (Oropesa, 2023)

A 39 years old man suspected of being involved in this incident was arrested in the Netherlands and later released avoided the jail time. (Pellegrino, 2023)

Intended target

Adobe Company and It’s Financial and Intellectual Properties

Attackers had targeted to gain access to Adobe servers by using its vulnerabilities. Then they using vulnerabilities in system infrastructure to again access to sensitive data. Adobe is the main victim of this attack. The attackers caused a lot of damage to Adobe’s reputation, and the recovery cost Adobe a lot of compensation and expenses. A large amount of proprietary data, include source code, has been exposed from several products, include Adobe Photoshop. Using this data, attackers can analyze the performance of Adobe’s Products and use them for retargeting. This is huge loss in competitive market.

Adobe Customers

The attack targeted the data of 38 million Adobe customers and government and private organizations. The data of the accounts of many large organizations such as 433 FBI accounts, 82 NSA accounts and 5000 NASA accounts were compromised in this breach. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)

Customer names, credit and debit card numbers that were encrypted, expiration dates, and other private information were among the pilfered data. The attacker's target in carrying out this attack should be financial gain. The stolen data may be sold on the dark web by the attackers. Also, it would put clients at risk in the future. Most users have one password for all of their online accounts, including bank online transfer accounts and Facebook. It affects other entities even though it is not an attack's direct target.

Detection of attack incident and Steps taken by Adobe System after the breach

Detection of attack incident

There is a dearth of comprehensive publicly available information detailing the precise steps involved in discovering the 2013 Adobe security breach. Nevertheless, some dubious sources claim that Adobe found encrypted credit card numbers and other data on a hacker's server, which is how they discovered the breach. Strong security monitoring systems, anomaly detection techniques, and the conscientious efforts of Adobe's incident response team probably contributed to the discovery of the 2013 Adobe security breach. These systems scanned network activity continuously, saw odd trends, and sent out alerts. The incident response team moved quickly to conduct an investigation, using forensic analysis to determine the scope of the breach and the attackers' strategies. Even though the precise details of the detection are still confidential, it is clear that internal monitoring was essential.

Step taken by Adobe after the breach

Adobe Systems' Chief Security Officer and spokesperson is Brad Arkin in 2013. Adobe did not fire Arkin despite the fact that he held the highest security title in the company in 2013—senior director. Arkin was elevated in its place. The explanation for Adobe's effective management of the data breach is that he was able to minimize its damage.

Arkin has issued a significant customer security notification and offered an apology on behalf of the company. Additionally, he apologizes to clients whose private information such as credit or debit card numbers was compromised. After that Adobe got several actions for save their customers and organization reputation. Among the actions the organization has taken are,

• Initially, all pertinent customers' passwords were reset as a precautionary measure to prevent any more illegal access to the valued customers' accounts. An email including instructions on how to reset the password will be sent to the customers whose accounts were compromised. To be on the safe side, Adobe systems also advised changing the password on any account that shares the same password as their Adobe account. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)
• The company also offered free credit monitoring to affected customers to help protect them from potential identity theft. (Oropesa, 2023)
• Additionally, Adobe is in the process of notifying the clients whose credit or debit card information was compromised. Customers who have information of this nature involved will receive a notification letter from Adobe outlining extra precautions to take in addition to changing their passwords to safeguard their accounts from being misused. A unique service option was also provided for the clients whose credit or debit card information was included, allowing them to sign up for a free one-year credit monitoring membership. This was one of the most important actions Adobe took to win back the trust of its clients. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)
• The banks that handle Adobe's payment processing have also been informed. As a result, they can cooperate with the banks and the payment card company to safeguard the accounts of their clients. (Arkin, 2018)
• Additionally, Adobe Systems has been in touch with federal law enforcement and is supporting their investigation. (Dubey, 2014 January 31)
• Adobe added two-factor authentication to all user accounts and enhanced the encryption techniques used to store user passwords. (Oropesa, 2023)
• Adobe also started using intrusion detection systems to detect and prevent unauthorized access to their network. (Oropesa, 2023)

After the recovery, according to an Adobe representative, the business has requested that the attacked data be removed from the website, and no further assaults on accounts have occurred.

Steps taken by other companies

This data breach is very important scenario. In this scenario many other entities also took proper security actions to avoid affect of this data breach for their comapnies Other major internet firms, like Facebook, have also been shaken by this hack and have promptly informed their customers. Typically, people will reuse their passwords across two or more websites. Facebook questioned the possibility that its users were using the same password on the Adobe Systems website. By informing their consumers of the security breach, numerous more websites followed suit.

Impact and the damage caused by the incident

Legal effect

After this data breach, the company's reputation was severely impacted and it faced potential legal actions. Adobe Systems Inc. appeared in a case held in United States District Court, N.D. in California under case number 13-CV-05226-LHK (In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., 2014). Adobe had to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by 15 state attorneys general. (Pellegrino, 2023) There, Adobe admitted that it is bound by the law to secure the privacy and data of its customers and failed to fulfill it. This caused damaged to the company’s reputation and caused the company to face many legal problems.

In 2013, Adobe All customers of Adobe products, including Creative Cloud subscribers, are required to accept Adobe's End–User License Agreements (“EULA”) or General Terms of Use. (In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., 2014) This both incorporate Adobe privacy policies, which provides in relevant part:

“[Adobe] provide[s] reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security controls to protect your information. However, despite our efforts, no security controls are 100% effective and Adobe cannot ensure or warrant the security of your personal information.” (Adobe, 2012)

Adobe's Safe Harbor Privacy Policy, also mention that,

“Adobe ... uses reasonable physical, electronic, and administrative safeguards to protect your personal information from loss; misuse; or unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction.” (In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., 2014)

So, this statements clearly mentions that Adobe has a legal responsibility to protect users' privacy XII and data. In the aforementioned case the plaintiffs accuse Adobe company that, Adobe's competition invested in industry-standard security practices, and therefore Adobe gained an unfair competitive advantage to the extent that Adobe did not. The plaintiffs assert that this behavior was “unethical, unscrupulous, and substantially injurious.” (In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., 2014) Such accusations caused a lot of damage to Adobe’s reputation at the time. The breach also raised concerns about the security of the software industry and led to calls for greater regulation of the industry.

Reputation damage

The security breach had a substantial impact on Adobe's reputation. Customers lost trust in the company's ability to safeguard their data, and the incident raised concerns about the overall security practices at Adobe. A tarnished reputation can have long-term consequences, affecting customer loyalty and potentially leading to a decline in sales and business partnerships.

Financial loss

When a data breach happens, one of the “hidden and unknown costs” is financial impact loss. Adobe will face a huge bill just in notification letters alone, not including credit monitoring costs and potential legal defense and settlement costs.

The average cost of a compromised record is $188, per the Ponemon 2013 Cost of Data Breach Study. This indicates that the overall cost comes to $714,400,000 based on the 38,000,000 Adobe customers whose sensitive information was stolen. Setting that sum aside for a second, it will cost $17,480,000 to mail notification letters to the 38,000,000 impacted customers. It goes without saying that these sums are noteworthy. But Adobe suffered a significant financial loss as a result. (Marciano, 2013)

Data Exposure

Lawyers have suggested the most significant commercial implication for Adobe is the theft of its source code. (Marciano, 2013) Also, the breach resulted in the exposure of sensitive information belonging to millions of Adobe users. This included Adobe IDs, passwords, credit card information, and in some cases, source code for various Adobe products. The compromise of such data posed a direct threat to the affected users, potentially leading to identity theft, financial fraud, or unauthorized access to other online accounts. This is major impact of this case, this could be negatively affected to customers privacy and financial assets.

In this case Adobe Photoshop’s source code was exposed. Attacker could be used that information for create malwares for these products and they can deeply analyze the vulnerabilities of that products. Due to the exposure of Adobe's financial and intellectual data, the company's future business plans are affected in the competitive market.

Most famous and secrete companies such as FBI, NSA and NASA also affected by this data breach.These organization deals with confidential data and exposing it publicly could have caused major problems. If attackers released stolen data about organizations and customers to dark web it could be the reason for many cyberattack in future.

Increased Cybersecurity Awareness

The breach contributed to a broader awareness of cybersecurity issues in the tech industry and among the general public. It highlighted the importance of robust security measures, regular monitoring, and proactive incident response in safeguarding sensitive data. As a example Adobe has set up new Intruder Detection System (IDS) and Intruder prevention system.

Also, Adobe improve their Authentication mechanism by introduction strong key encryption, multifactor authentication, improve cloud security, improve their cloud infrastructure and they also place many security awareness mechanisms.

Suggestions to mitigate such incidents in the future

Suggestions

A key suggestion would be to maintain strict security over their data storage facilities and make sure they are up to date with emerging technology. These are some suggestion can be used to mitigate such incidents in future,

• To find and fix any potential security holes in its systems, the organization needs to regularly perform security assessments. Penetration testing and vulnerability scanning should be used to find and fix any system vulnerabilities.
• In order to keep personnel informed about the most recent security risks, it should also regularly conduct security assessments of its third-party vendors to make sure that they are likewise putting in place sufficient security measures to safeguard sensitive data.
• Adobe can organize proper cyber security awareness training schedule for their entire employees as well as specially for cyber security team.
• Continuous security countermeasures and ongoing cloud experience regulations should be implemented by Adobe. Given the volume of users and the extensive built-in architecture of their cloud, their security countermeasures should be updated on a regular basis.
• If Adobe has cyber/data breach insurance, this insurance company will pay for defense costs in the event there’s a lawsuit due to their data breach, pay for privacy regulatory defense and where insurable by state law, regulatory fines and penalties and it was gave some financial help to recover this financial loss.

Good practices and suggestions for customers for how to manage incidents like this

In such cases, society may be disturbed, and in such cases, the appropriate measures should be followed by the relevant responsible institution or sometimes by the government. In such cases, society may be disturbed, and in such cases, the appropriate measures should be followed by the relevant responsible institution or sometimes by the government. It can help to avoid social engineering attacks. Such situation another attackers take advantages by distributing phishing mails so customers should careful.

• Users should change Adobe passwords immediately, and others without similar passwords should do the same. Resetting passwords directly from the website is safer than email notifications.
• Make sure to use tools only suggested by the responsible entities. An online tool created by a security firm named LastPass was recommended by Adobe in this scenario.
• It's a good idea to avoid using the same password repeatedly. i.e., never use the same password across multiple internet service accounts. Since it's likely that if one of your accounts is compromised, the other could follow suit quickly if you use the same password for two or more.
• Create a Strong Password Creation of strong password is highly recommended as it's not easy to guess and probably may not be compromised easily. In this scenario also researchers found that, that some of the account has Social Security Number (SSN) as their password. There were thousands of instances in which people wrote a hint for password as same as Facebook or same as bank account.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the 2013 Adobe data breach is still remembered as a noteworthy incident with ramifications for both the company and its customers. In addition to putting people at risk of financial loss and identity theft, the compromise of sensitive data, including user IDs, passwords, and credit card information, damaged Adobe's brand. The event made clear how crucial it is to have strong cybersecurity safeguards in place to protect user data. Adobe moved quickly to investigate the breach, lessen its effects, and put stronger security measures in place. The consequences of the hack bring to light the continuous difficulties that enterprises encounter in preserving the security of their digital assets and the everlasting significance of taking preventative action to guard against changing cyberthreats.

References

• Adobe. (2012, september 11). Adobe EULA. Retrieved from slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/HarisborisAhmadilapa/adobe-products-eula
• Arkin, B. (2018, April 12). Adobe’s CSO talks security, the 2013 breach, and how he sets priorities. (T. Bell, Interviewer) CSO. Retrieved december 11, 2023, from https://www.csoonline.com/article/565054/adobe-s-cso-talks-security-the-2013-breach-and-how-he-sets-priorities.html
• Case study of Adobe Cyber Attack. (2023, January). Retrieved from studocu: https://www.studocu.com/en-gb/messages/question/2827334/case-study-of-adobe-cyber-attack
• Dubey, G. (2014 January 31). Adobe Security Breach. Slideshare. Retrieved december 11, 2023, from https://www.slideshare.net/GauravFouzdar/adobe-security-breach-30650671
• In re Adobe Systems Inc. Privacy Litigation., Case No.: 13–CV–05226–LHK (United States District Court, N.D. California, San Jose Division. january 1, 2014). Retrieved december 11, 2023, from https://casetext.com/case/in-re-adobe-sys-inc-1
• Marciano, C. (2013, November 1). Adobe Data Breach Insurance Case Study. Retrieved from databreachinsurancequote: https://databreachinsurancequote.com/data-breach-insurance-2/adobe-data-breach-insurance-case-study/
• Oropesa, X. S. (2023, june 12). Case Study About Adobe Breach. (scribd) Retrieved december 11, 2023, from https://www.scribd.com/document/652388915/Case-Study-about-Adobe-Breach
• Pellegrino, S. (2023, december). The six biggest cyberattacks in history. Retrieved May 9, 2023, from Techmonitor: https://techmonitor.ai/technology/biggest-cyberattacks-in-history#h-6-adobe-cyberattack-2013