The global cybersecurity landscape has sounded a deafening alarm as we move through 2026. A series of newly released reports from leading security firms have painted a stark picture of a threat environment that is not only growing in volume but fundamentally evolving in sophistication. Driven by artificial intelligence (AI), the proliferation of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), and a strategic pivot by attackers, cybercrime has, according to experts, entered a dangerous new “industrial phase” .
Far from being a nuisance, ransomware and related cyber-extortion have become record-breaking menaces, with victim numbers soaring and tactics shifting to evade even the most prepared defenses.
Record-Breaking Victim Numbers and Group Proliferation
The statistics from the past year are unequivocal: 2025 was a banner year for cybercriminals, and 2026 is poised to be even worse. The Quorum Cyber 2026 Global Cyber Risk Outlook found that the number of newly formed ransomware groups surged by 30% in the year leading up to October 2025 . This explosion of new actors is a direct result of the low barriers to entry facilitated by RaaS kits, which allow even unskilled criminals to launch sophisticated attacks.
This trend is corroborated by GuidePoint Security’s GRIT 2026 Ransomware & Cyber Threat Report, which documented the most active year for ransomware ever recorded. The report revealed a staggering 58% year-over-year increase in ransomware victims. In the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, 2,287 victims were posted on leak sites—the highest number ever seen in a single quarter. December 2025 was the most active month on record, with a 42% year-over-year increase in successful attacks . In total, 124 distinct ransomware groups were active in 2025, a 46% jump from the previous year, with groups like Qilin rising to prominence .
Check Point’s 2026 Cyber Security Report confirmed this trend, noting a 48% year-over-year increase in extorted victims and a 50% rise in new RaaS groups, as the ecosystem becomes increasingly fragmented and decentralized .
AI: The Great Accelerator
At the heart of this surge is the integration of artificial intelligence. No longer a futuristic concept, AI is now a core component of the cybercriminal toolkit, enabling attacks at a speed and scale previously unimaginable.
The Quorum Cyber report provides a chilling example, with early evidence of a nation-state threat group using AI agents to automate up to 90% of an entire intrusion lifecycle . Meanwhile, ThreatDown’s 2026 State of Malware Report declared that cybercrime has shifted to “machine scale,” with AI agents now capable of running multiple simultaneous intrusions autonomously and compressing the time between a patch being released and an exploit being created to just minutes .
This automation is allowing attackers to outpace human defenders. AI is being used to accelerate every stage of the attack chain, from highly convincing social engineering and faster reconnaissance to more effective malware development .
The Great Pivot: From Encryption to Extortion and “Silent Residency”
Perhaps the most significant strategic shift identified in these reports is the attackers’ move away from noisy, destructive encryption. As organizations have become better at backing up data and restoring from backups, the traditional ransomware model of locking files has become less profitable.
According to the Picus Red Report 2026, the use of “Data Encrypted for Impact” dropped by a dramatic 38% . Instead, attackers are prioritizing data theft and extortion. They silently exfiltrate vast amounts of sensitive information and then threaten to leak it unless a ransom is paid. This tactic allows them to operate with greater stealth.
Picus describes this new breed of malware as a “Digital Parasite,” with 80% of the top MITRE ATT&CK techniques now favoring stealth, evasion, and persistence over immediate destruction . These parasites live inside the host system for months, harvesting credentials and mapping networks without triggering any alarms. The Quorum Cyber report also noted this “clear pivot by cybercriminals from encryption-based ransomware toward rapid data theft and extortion” .
This stealth is enabled by techniques like “living off the land,” where attackers use legitimate IT tools and stolen credentials to blend in with normal network activity. ThreatDown found that remote encryption attacks—where data is encrypted without running malware locally on the target machine—accounted for a staggering 86% of ransomware activity in 2025 .
Prime Targets: The U.S. and Critical Infrastructure
The geographic focus of these attacks remains heavily skewed toward wealthy, English-speaking nations. All major reports concur that the United States is the single most targeted country, accounting for nearly half (55% according to GuidePoint, and nearly 50% according to ThreatDown) of all ransomware victims .
Sectorially, attackers are going after the industries where disruption hurts the most. Manufacturing was the most heavily impacted sector in 2025, accounting for 14% of attacks, followed by Technology and Retail/Wholesale . Furthermore, there is a troubling convergence of ransomware with operational technology (OT). Reports indicate that attackers are increasingly targeting industrial control systems (ICS), moving beyond IT data theft to potentially tampering with physical equipment in energy facilities and water treatment plants, transforming a cybercrime issue into a public safety concern .
The financial stakes are immense. The Quorum Cyber report highlighted a massive 179% surge in average ransom demands within the financial services sector and a 97% increase in manufacturing . It also estimated that North Korea-linked actors likely earned over $2 billion from cybercrime activities in 2025 .
Conclusion: A Call for Fundamental Resilience
The consensus from these global reports is clear: the threat landscape of 2026 is more dangerous, more automated, and more insidious than ever before. The traditional “smash-and-grab” of encryption is being replaced by quiet, patient, and highly profitable data extortion.
For organizations, this means that legacy defenses are no longer sufficient. Security experts are urging a return to fundamentals, but with a renewed vigor. This includes rigorous identity and access management to protect against credential theft, continuous validation of security controls through attack simulations, and an unwavering focus on shoring up unmanaged devices and network blind spots .
As Federico Charosky, CEO of Quorum Cyber, aptly summarized, “Over the past year, we have witnessed a marked acceleration in the capability and ambition of threat actors” . In 2026, the question is no longer if an organization will face a serious attack, but whether it can contain the blast radius when it inevitably does.
Jerry