Ransomware encrypts or steals data to disrupt operations and extort victims, making backups, access controls, and incident response essential.
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Background for this topic.
Ransomware is malware used to deny access to systems or data, usually by encrypting files and demanding payment for decryption. Many operations also steal sensitive information and threaten to publish it, so an attack can create both an availability crisis and a privacy or disclosure risk. Initial access may involve phishing, stolen credentials, exposed remote services, or exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities; attackers may then move through the network before deploying the payload.
Defenses should combine vulnerability management, phishing-resistant authentication where practical, endpoint and network monitoring, and backups that are isolated from routine administrator access and regularly tested for recovery. Organizations should also limit privileges and segment critical systems to reduce the blast radius. An incident requires rapid containment, preservation of forensic evidence, restoration from known-good backups, and assessment of notification, legal, and regulatory obligations. Threat intelligence can help identify relevant criminal infrastructure or tactics, but it does not replace sound access control, patching, detection, and recovery practices.
Flashpoint published its 2025 mid-year ransomware report that highlighted the top five most prolific groups currently in operation.
The financially motivated threat group used cloud resources to conduct a complex, ransomware-style attack against an enterprise victim.
Researchers raise the alarm that a new, rapidly evolving ransomware strain uses an OpenAI model to render and execute malicious code in real time, ushering in a new era of cyberattacks against enterprises.
When ransomware hits hospitals, neighbors absorb patient overflow. Key defenses include backup recovery and multifactor authentication implementation.
The "incident" led to outages affecting a variety of the tech company's operations, though the full scope of the breach is unknown.
New features to take over smartphones and monitor user activity demonstrate the continued evolution of the malware, which is now being spread on GitHub.