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Topic

Ransomware

Malware that encrypts a victim's files or systems, used by attackers to demand ransom for decryption and often threaten to leak stolen data.

Current stories

securityOne report1 publisher

Anne Arundel County says an intruder copied files from its systems

Anne Arundel County, Maryland, confirmed that an unauthorized actor copied files from its systems after detecting activity on August 28. The Rhysida ransomware gang claimed the attack, but the county has not said what was taken or whether residents are affected.

Publishers:therecord.media

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap
Not scored
Incentives55
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Qilin and Settra ransomware crews exploit PAN-OS GlobalProtect bypass CVE-2026-0257

Qilin and Settra ransomware groups are exploiting CVE-2026-0257, a PAN-OS GlobalProtect and Prisma Access authentication bypass disclosed in May. ReliaQuest says access through a victim's own VPN can look like remote work until credential theft or ransomware deployment is underway.

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Picus finds simulated attacks raised an alert 14% of the time across 338 million runs

Picus Security's Blue Report 2026 puts prevention at 69% across 338 million simulated attacks. The vendor says prevention falls to 37% once an attacker has authenticated access, while the alert score has not moved from 14%.

Publishers:picussecurity.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives70
Confidence45
securityConfirmed11 publishers

Ahold Delhaize keeps its stores open while some systems stay offline after a cyber incident

Ahold Delhaize, operator of more than 9,400 stores, confirmed it took some systems offline after a cybersecurity incident. A spokesperson was not immediately available to answer BleepingComputer's questions on scope or encryption.

Publishers:bleepingcomputer.com govinfosecurity.com newsroom.aholddelhaize.com nieuws.ah.nl nos.nl retaildetail.nl retailtrends.nl securityweek.com stirileprotv.ro thecyberexpress.com therecord.media

Perspective Coverage

11 publishers
Builder
Builder 4%
Operator
Operator 74%
Investor
Investor 22%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives55
Confidence70
securityOne report1 publisher

Ransomware actors exploit Palo Alto GlobalProtect bypass CVE-2026-0257, ReliaQuest reports

ReliaQuest reports ransomware actors are exploiting CVE-2026-0257, an authentication bypass in Palo Alto PAN-OS GlobalProtect and Prisma Access. The Bedrock Agents credential flaw Zenity found is already fixed.

Publishers:isc.sans.edu

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Semperis survey finds attackers used AI against 84% of the ransomware victims it polled

Semperis's survey of 1,200 IT and security professionals reports AI in the ransomware attacks on 84% of surveyed victims. The survey counts victims, and the people quoted on its meaning are tied to Semperis. The 87% who saw identity systems targeted give budget owners firmer ground this quarter.

Publishers:cbsnews.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption30
Hype gap+30
Incentives75
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Akira affiliate took a password-only SonicWall VPN account to the domain controller in about two hours

An Akira affiliate began spraying passwords at a SonicWall SSL VPN on August 4, 2026, and one worked about seven minutes later. The account had no MFA, and the ransomware deployment that followed failed after credentials and file-share data were already stolen.

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives80
Confidence50
buildOne report1 publisher

Japan tells companies to patch and harden logins after a Times Car leak exposed 6.6 million accounts

Japan's government told ministries, local authorities and companies to patch known flaws and tighten supplier security after 20-plus firms disclosed attacks. For operators the practical items are supplier maps, contractor logins and how long ID images are kept.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
leadershipOne report1 publisher

Qilin and The Gentlemen are behind 32% of UK ransomware attacks, Cohesity data shows

Cohesity data puts Qilin and The Gentlemen behind 32% of UK ransomware attacks. UK volume rose 60% on the quarter, and a watchlist of two names covers a third of it, leaving 68% with other actors.

Publishers:itpro.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives55
Confidence45
securityOne report1 publisher

Qilin and Settra ransomware crews are using a PAN-OS VPN bypass disclosed in May

ReliaQuest says Qilin and Settra ransomware groups are exploiting CVE-2026-0257, a PAN-OS GlobalProtect auth bypass disclosed May 13. Upgrading closes the entry point, but sessions opened before the upgrade may survive it.

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap−10
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence55
securityConfirmed5 publishers

Japan extradites an alleged Qilin core member to Germany after he arrived as a tourist

Japan detained a Russian national alleged to be a core Qilin ransomware member in Osaka in May and has extradited him to Germany. Qilin went on listing victims while he was held, more than 450 since June by BleepingComputer's count.

Perspective Coverage

5 publishers
Builder
Builder 7%
Operator
Operator 59%
Investor
Investor 34%

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence72
securityConfirmed3 publishers

Ransomware in one IDCF Cloud region hits 495 companies and local governments

IDC Frontier says ransomware in its IDCF Cloud East Japan Region 1 has affected 495 companies and local governments using the service. The SoftBank Group subsidiary has also locked customers out of management consoles in every region while it verifies their security.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 27%
Operator
Operator 58%
Investor
Investor 15%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption55
Hype gap+15
Incentives45
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

Korea's $3 million cyberinsurance market is a tenth of one US ransomware payout

Korea's cyberinsurance market was worth $3 million in 2023, about a sixty-fifth of Japan's $196 million. AI-based attacks are now reaching banks such as KB Kookmin and Hana, yet most Korean companies still pay for breaches out of their own funds.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption8
Hype gap+10
Incentives50
Confidence50
securityConfirmed10 publishers

MonsterCloud's owner is charged with passing off purchased ransomware keys as proprietary decryption

MonsterCloud owner Zohar Pinhasi is charged with paying ransomware gangs over $8 million for keys while billing victims over $19 million. The charges turn on when the firm paid, so a recovery contract has to fix the order of steps and the source of any sample decryption.

Perspective Coverage

11 publishers
Builder
Builder 6%
Operator
Operator 75%
Investor
Investor 19%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+12
Incentives62
Confidence74
securityOne report1 publisher

Victims confirmed 247 of a record 2,627 ransomware claims in Q3, Comparitech says

Comparitech counted 2,627 ransomware attacks claimed in Q3 2026, a quarterly record up 27% on Q2 and 61% on a year earlier. Victims have confirmed 247 of those claims, so the record is mostly a count of what the gangs themselves assert.

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+30
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
securityOne report1 publisher

Andover confirms its August attacker got inside town systems

Andover officials confirmed an attacker reached some town systems in the Aug. 13 cyberattack but still cannot say whether any data was taken. The town has set no date for finishing the review that decides who gets notified.

Reality

Evidence60
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives60
Confidence55
securityConfirmed10 publishers

FortiBleed keeps scanning exposed Fortinet firewalls as toll grows to 400,000-450,000 devices

The FBI and Secret Service warned Tuesday that FortiBleed is still scanning Fortinet firewalls and SSL VPN gateways with 86,644 stolen credentials. Patching and a password reset will not clear it.

Perspective Coverage

10 publishers
Builder
Builder 22%
Operator
Operator 69%
Investor
Investor 9%

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption62
Hype gap+25
Incentives40
Confidence68
securityOne report1 publisher

Check Point counts 2,803 weekly attacks per organization in September, up 48% on last year

Check Point says organizations averaged 2,803 cyber attacks a week in September, up 48% on a year earlier. The figures come from the vendor's own count, and they support checking mail link filtering and AI prompt controls before spending anything new.

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives80
Confidence45

Earlier coverage

  1. Advantest confirms February ransomware attackers stole SSNs, passport and medical data

    Security · October 7, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  2. Rhysida gives Berlin seven days before it auctions 5.79TB of city data

    Security · September 5, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  3. Healthcare cybersecurity bill that lapsed in 2024 clears the Senate by unanimous consent

    Security · October 5, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  4. Suspected ransomware takes down about 500 servers at Osaka Metropolitan University

    Security · October 6, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  5. Ofqual survey finds 9% of teachers in England see cyber security as a leadership job

    Leadership · October 1, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  6. Investigators say a 16-year-old ran KillSec, an extortion crew that exploited weakly secured cloud storage

    Security · October 1, 2026 · Confirmed14 publishers

  7. Storm-3168 mapped an Azure tenant for 17 hours before a seven-minute deletion run

    Security · September 28, 2026 · Confirmed6 publishers

  8. Warlock ransomware group narrows its targets to large Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking organizations

    Security · October 1, 2026 · Confirmed6 publishers

  9. Ransomware tooling turns up in weather OT at South Africa's air traffic operator

    Security · September 30, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  10. Arizona's court system says hackers copied residents' data without deploying ransomware

    Security · October 1, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  11. Ransomware at Tokyo rail operator Keio reaches the group's hotel business

    Security · September 30, 2026 · Confirmed4 publishers

  12. Ransomware climbed to a second straight 2026 high of 1,073 attacks in August

    Security · September 27, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  13. Akira Reboots Into Safe Mode to Blind EDR, and Starves Its Own Encryptor

    Security · August 17, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  14. WMIC is gone from Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2, and your wmic.exe rules go with it

    Security · August 18, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  15. The extortion layer your IR playbook has no page for: 'Ransom Busters' emails victims mid-incident

    Security · August 18, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  16. Rapid7 counted 8,539 high-severity CVEs and 40 exploited ones. Patch coverage is now a vanity metric

    Security · August 18, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  17. U.S. Bank's answer to LockBit: the breach happened two tiers out

    Security · August 21, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  18. Aurora operators drove Cursor Agent through ten victim networks over six weeks

    Security · August 28, 2026 · Confirmed4 publishers

  19. Extortionists supply the only itemized count of what left Berlin's state network

    Security · August 28, 2026 · Confirmed6 publishers

  20. AI agents ran more than 50 ATT&CK techniques through one enterprise in under 10 hours

    Security · September 2, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  21. CISA: Ransomware gangs exploiting WatchGuard Firebox flaw as 9,000 firewalls remain unpatched nine months later

    Security · September 10, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers