IR Trends Q2 2026: Phishing and weaponized remote management tools drive attack chains

Phishing was the primary means of gaining initial access this quarter, appearing in over half of all Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR engagements - an increase from approximately a third of engagements last quarter. Attackers continued to innovate their delivery methods to evade defenses,...

Ransomware incidents in Japan during the first half of 2025

In the first half of 2025, the number of ransomware attacks in Japan increased by approximately 1.4 times compared to the previous year. Ransomware attackers continue to primarily target small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan. The most affected industry remains manufacturing, unchanged from...

IR Trends Q2 2025: Phishing attacks persist as actors leverage compromised valid accounts to enhance legitimacy

Phishing remained the top method of initial access this quarter, appearing in a third of all engagements - a decrease from 50 percent last quarter. Threat actors largely leveraged compromised internal or trusted business partner email accounts to deploy malicious emails, bypassing security contro...

IR Trends Q1 2025: Phishing soars as identity-based attacks persist

Phishing attacks spiked this quarter as threat actors leveraged this method of initial access in half of all engagements, a vast increase from previous quarters. Conversely, the use of valid accounts for initial access was rarely seen this quarter, despite being the top observed method in 2024,...

Talos IR trends Q4 2024: Web shell usage and exploitation of public-facing applications spike

Threat actors increasingly deployed web shells against vulnerable web applications and primarily exploited vulnerable or unpatched public-facing applications to gain initial access in Q4, a notable shift from previous quarters. The functionality of the web shells and targeted web applications...

CISA and Partners Release Advisory on Akira Ransomware

Today, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre EC3, and the Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre NCSC-NL released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA, StopRansomware: Akira Ransomware, to disseminate known Akira ransomware tactics, techniques, and...

Uncover the Hidden Story of Ransomware Victims – They’re Not Who You Think

Uncover the Hidden Story of Ransomware Victims – They’re Not Who You Think By Trellix Advanced Research Center · July 31, 2023 Ransomware attacks against large corporations often dominate headlines. High-profile attacks against organizations like Kaseya, Colonial Pipeline, and MOVEit might make y...

LockBit ransomware advisory from CISA provides interesting insights

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center MS-ISAC, and the cybersecurity authorities of Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and New Zealand CERT NZ, NCSC-NZ have all...

CISA updates ransomware guidance

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has updated its StopRansomware guide to account for the fact that ransomware actors have accelerated their tactics and techniques since the original guide was released in September of 2020. The StopRansomware guide is set up as a one-stop...

U.S. Government Offers $10 Million Reward for Information on Conti Ransomware Gang

The U.S. State Department on Thursday announced a $10 million reward for information related to five individuals associated with the Conti ransomware group. The reward offer is also notable for the fact that it marks the first time the face of a Conti associate, known as "Target," has been...

Ransomware: February 2022 review

The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team continuously monitors the threat landscape to stay on top of existing and emerging attacks. In this February 2022 ransomware review, we go over some the most successful ransomware incidents based on both open source and dark web intelligence. BlackByte...

Conti, DeadBolt Target Delta, QNAP

Two Taiwanese companies were affected by separate ransomware incidents this week, forcing one to scramble to restore crippled systems and another to push out an emergency update to mitigate attacks on its customers. Delta Electronics, an electronics company that provides products for Apple, Tesla...

FBI Warns Conti Ransomware Hit 16 U.S. Health and Emergency Services

The adversary behind Conti ransomware targeted no fewer than 16 healthcare and first responder networks in the U.S. within the past year, totally victimizing over 400 organizations worldwide, 290 of which are situated in the country. That's according to a new flash alert issued by the U.S. Federa...

Toymaker Mattel Hit by Ransomware Attack

Top toymaker Mattel revealed it was a victim of a ransomware attack that successfully encrypted some data and temporarily crippled a limited number of business functions. The disclosure was part of a U.S. Securities Exchange Commission SEC disclosure filed in late October. Mattel reported the...

Navigating the MAZE: Tactics, Techniques and Procedures Associated With MAZE Ransomware Incidents

Targeted ransomware incidents have brought a threat of disruptive and destructive attacks to organizations across industries and geographies. FireEye Mandiant Threat Intelligence has previously documented this threat in our investigations of trends across ransomware incidents, FIN6 activity,...

ACSC Releases Advisory on Mailto Ransomware Incidents

The Australian Cyber Security Centre ACSC has released an advisory on Mailto ransomware incidents. The ACSC has limited information regarding the initial intrusion vector for Mailto, also known as Kazakavkovkiz, but evidence suggests that Mailto actors may have used phishing and password spray...

MegaCortex Ransomware Revamps for Mass Distribution

A dangerous enterprise-focused ransomware, MegaCortex, has been retooled to become a weapon for wide-scale attacks. Previously used only in manual, post-network-exploitation, targeted campaigns on carefully selected targets, MegaCortex now has a second variant that adds automation to the kill...

ThreatList: SMB Security Challenges Grow with the Cloud

Firewall and network security is the No. 1 concern when it comes to small- and medium-sized business SMB security, according to research, particularly as they begin to move more and more of their mission-critical infrastructure to the cloud. However, preparing for increasing security threats...