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Smart search ranks by meaning as well as keywords (one row per story, last 45 days).
DeadLock Ransomware Uses Polygon Smart Contracts to Make Extortion Infra Harder to Disrupt
Microsoft reports DeadLock ransomware using Polygon smart contracts and Session messaging for extortion infrastructure, claiming 96 victims across Europe and the U.S.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence reports the DeadLock ransomware operation uses the Session messaging network and Polygon blockchain smart contracts to host victim chat, proxy server addresses, and its data leak blog, making takedowns harder. First detected in July 2025, the group has claimed 96 victims, mostly in Italy, Spain, Poland, Türkiye, and the U.S., with deployments by affiliates of Lynx and INC ransomware. The encryptor uses Curve25519 with XChaCha20, drops an interactive HTML recovery chat application, geofences CIS-linked countries, and clears logs and shadow copies to evade forensics.
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Top 10 Best Ransomware Protection Solutions in 2026
A 2026 buyer's guide ranks ten ransomware protection tools by kill-chain role as extortion shifts from encryption to data theft.
The roundup organizes defenses across the ransomware kill chain: prevention-grade EPP/EDR platforms, containment layers, rollback specialists, and immutable recovery. Recommended products include CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, Sophos, SentinelOne, Bitdefender, Trend Micro, Halcyon, Huntress, and Malwarebytes. It stresses that many crews now extort on stolen data without encrypting, making exfiltration detection and response speed as important as rollback.
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Aurora Ransomware Operators Use Cursor AI in Attacks Against 10 Targets
Aurora ransomware operators used Cursor AI running Claude Sonnet to plan and execute intrusions against dozens of organizations in nine countries.
CloudSEK and Gambit Security analyzed exposed infrastructure tied to the Russian-speaking Aurora (Aur0ra) group, revealing months of activity against more than 20 organizations across nine countries between April and July 2026, with 33 victims listed by Ransomware.Live. The operator used the Cursor agentic coding assistant to plan attacks in Russian, including an AD CS exploitation plan, and Gambit observed Cursor Agent (running Anthropic's Claude Sonnet) performing hands-on exploitation tasks such as Nmap scanning, NetExec enumeration, NTLM relay, and certificate attacks against 10 targets. Attacks begin with email bombing plus IT help desk vishing via Xray-core, followed by SMB/LDAP/WinRM/RDP lateral movement, log clearing, Defender disabling, and exfiltration; the Windows and Linux/ESXi encryptors are built from a single Zig codebase, with shadow copy deletion and VM-killing before encryption.
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Weekly Update 517: Cyber Ransoms
Troy Hunt's weekly commentary argues much ransomware is simple extortion by young actors who struggle to monetize ransoms.
In Weekly Update 517, Troy Hunt comments on the current ransomware landscape, noting many attacks involve pure extortion rather than actual malware. He observes that many actors are young and earn large sums but face practical difficulties spending ransom proceeds. The piece is opinion commentary rather than a new incident disclosure.
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The State of Ransomware Q2 2026
Check Point's Q2 2026 ransomware report finds dominant RaaS operations still leading while the previously concentrated ransomware landscape starts to shift.
Check Point Research published its State of Ransomware Q2 2026 report, examining the ransomware threat landscape. Over the past year the ecosystem was defined by concentration, with a handful of dominant Ransomware-as-a-Service operations causing most damage while the pool of active groups shrank. The new report indicates this picture is beginning to change, although the leading operations are still winning the majority of activity.
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Gunra Ransomware Exploits Fortinet FortiOS, FortiProxy Flaws to Breach Networks
CISA, FBI, and South Korean agencies warn Gunra ransomware, with 51 victims since April 2025, exploits Fortinet flaws for double-extortion attacks on critical infrastructure.
CISA, the FBI, and South Korean agencies warned of Gunra ransomware attacks targeting healthcare, financial services, government, and professional services worldwide. The Conti-derived operation exploits internet-facing Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy flaws CVE-2024-55591 and CVE-2025-24472 for initial access, then deploys double extortion with Salsa20/ChaCha20 encryption and publishes non-payers on a leak site within five to seven days. Ransomware.Live lists 51 victims since April 2025, mostly in South Korea, Brazil, Spain, Thailand, and Hong Kong. The group uses Impacket tools for SMB lateral movement and NTDS credential dumping, tampers with VDI authentication to accept a designated OTP value to bypass MFA, and launched a RaaS affiliate program in January 2026 under the new alias Golden Community.
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12 Best Ransomware Protection Solutions Compared (2026): Features & Pricing
GBHackers compares 12 ransomware protection solutions for 2026, recommending layered stacks of EDR prevention, managed detection, containment, and guaranteed recovery.
The editorial comparison argues no single product stops ransomware, recommending a layered strategy across prevention, early detection, blast-radius containment, and clean recovery. CrowdStrike and SentinelOne are named best-in-class EDR, Huntress and Sophos MDR for managed 24/7 coverage, ColorTokens for microsegmentation containment, and Rubrik and Acronis for guaranteed recovery. The guide notes ransomware is now professionalized with double extortion and encryption sprints measured in minutes.
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Akira Hits Safe Mode: Ransomware Rebooting Around EDR
Huntress documents an Akira ransomware affiliate rebooting endpoints into Windows Safe Mode to evade EDR and Defender, though Safe Mode broke the ransomware.
Huntress observed an Akira ransomware affiliate rebooting victim machines into Windows Safe Mode to disable EDR and Microsoft Defender before deploying ransomware. In an ironic twist, Safe Mode also prevented the ransomware from executing properly. The post walks through the full attack chain and the defensive lessons.
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Ransomware Now Shows Up in Nearly Half of All Breaches: A Survival Playbook for Lean Security Teams
Cyble reports 5,967 ransomware attacks in 2025, up 50%, accounting for nearly half of all tracked breaches.
Cyble's Global Cybersecurity Report 2025 documented 5,967 ransomware attacks, a 50% year-over-year jump. Against 6,046 data breaches and leaks recorded in the same period, ransomware accounted for 49.7% of the combined total. The blog lays out an incident response playbook for lean security teams facing this dominant threat.
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Mole Ransomware: How One Malicious Spam Campaign Quickly Increased Complexity and Changed Tactics
Unit 42 tracks the new Mole ransomware (CryptoMix family) spread via USPS-themed malspam, with tactics escalating to JavaScript downloaders dropping multiple malware families.
On April 11, 2017, a malspam campaign began distributing Mole ransomware, a CryptoMix-family strain, through USPS-themed emails linking to fake Microsoft Word Online sites offering a bogus Office plugin. By April 13 the campaign added Nemucod JavaScript downloaders installing Mole alongside Kovter and Miuref, and by April 18 it switched to the KINS banking Trojan before moving to speeding-ticket themes and a fake parking services website. Unit 42 notes the rapid tactic changes are likely intended to evade detection, and CryptoMix variants like Mole are typically repackaged within weeks.
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Detecting cloud ransomware in Azure with Tenable One’s cloud detection and response capabilities
Tenable details ransomware group Storm-0501's Azure tenant-hijacking tactics and how its cloud detection and response identifies them.
Tenable's blog describes how cybercrime group Storm-0501 conducts cloud-first ransomware campaigns against Azure environments. The group has shifted from endpoint encryption to total hijacking of cloud tenants and systematically neutralizes resource locks, immutability policies, and backups. Tenable outlines its One Cloud Exposure detections, using AI-powered threat stories and precision alerts, to expose these TTPs early.
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Akira Affiliate Crashes Ransomware After Attempting EDR Evasion
Huntress documented an Akira ransomware affiliate attack that failed after its anti-EDR tool crashed legitimate software and stopped encryption before completion.
Infosecurity Magazine reports on Huntress research into a failed Akira ransomware affiliate attack. The affiliate attempted EDR evasion using an anti-EDR tool, but the tool interfered with legitimate software on the client's system. The interference crashed the ransomware before encryption completed, sabotaging the attack; no completed encryption was reported.
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PLEASE_READ_ME: The Opportunistic Ransomware Devastating MySQL Servers
Guardicore Labs uncovers the PLEASE_READ_ME ransomware campaign targeting MySQL servers, using double extortion and publishing stolen victim data.
Guardicore Labs at Akamai uncovered an opportunistic ransomware campaign dubbed PLEASE_READ_ME that targets MySQL servers. The attackers employ double extortion, publishing stolen data to pressure victims into paying. The campaign is devastating internet-facing MySQL deployments, making exposed database servers the primary at-risk population.
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