Ransomware groups have generated so much damage that the United States Federal government has made it a top priority to thwart such efforts including, hosting a major international summit on the topic, setting up a ransomware task force and repeatedly urging organizations to improve their cyber resilience.

Kroll has observed an uptick in actors offering network access on the dark web, particularly in the wake of recent disruptions to the ransomware-as-a-service (RAAS) ecosphere such as the ban on ransomware discussions in notorious underground criminal forums.

Nearly 80 per cent of all ransomware attacks in the first half of 2021 involved the threat of leaking exfiltrated data. Exfiltration is a popular pressure tactic as it introduces the threat to publish stolen sensitive data to a threat actor extortion website if a ransom payment is not received. Our team currently tracks over 40 threat actor extortion websites, with new sites belonging to new ransomware groups emerging each week.