Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) is a critical function for modern organizations, given the reliance on external vendors and partners. The interconnectedness of digital ecosystems means that a breach at a third party can have severe repercussions for your organization. In a recent Dark Reading survey, 30% of organizations experienced some or many supply chain attacks over the past 12 months, and only 14% of respondents reported themselves confident their supply chain is completely secure.

Ransomware attacks are undeniably on the rise—but just how significant is the increase? According to Bitsight CTI researchers, ransomware attacks (as measured by unique victims listed on leak sites) rose by almost 25% in 2024, and the number of ransomware group leak sites rose by 53%. Ransomware is becoming the go-to tactic for financially driven threat actors seeking quick and substantial payouts.

Around 10:33 UTC, on April 28, 2025, Portugal, Spain, and some regions in the south of France were hit by a nationwide power outage. It impacted business, public transport, healthcare, and the daily lives of millions.

According to our 2025 State of the Underground report—in which we take a look back at cybercrime on the deep and dark web from the past year—384 unique varieties of malware were sold in 2024, an increase from 349 in 2023. To determine this number, our research team examined malware and hacking tools for sale on the top three criminal forums, and as a result, we found that Remote Access Trojans (RATs) were the second most common form of malware in 2024, just behind stealer malware.

Since mid-2024, Bitsight has been collaborating with Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit and other partners to dismantle the operational capabilities of Lumma Stealer (LummaC2) — currently the most widely distributed information stealer. Early this week, a coordinated action was carried out to disrupt its operations and take down the supporting malware infrastructure.

In 2024, we collected 2.9 billion unique sets of compromised credentials—a jump from the 2.2 billion collected in 2023. While this rise can be explained by advancement in Bitsight’s credential collection capabilities, we assess that the precise number of credentials shared on the underground has also risen, fueled by increased data breaches and the spike in stealer logs.

We know that everyone loves a feel-good, optimistic story, and when we set out to write our annual State of the Underground report — an analysis of nearly 2 billion intelligence items that we collected in 2024, including posts from underground forums and markets, Telegram messages, and news articles — we hoped to find the cyber equivalent of a cup of hot chocolate.

As cyber risk leaders are called to balance the responsibility of managing risk in the face of both broader attack surfaces and increased regulatory and budgetary scrutiny, prioritization of work is everything. Cybersecurity resources are finite, while the vulnerabilities and threats just keep growing. The best way for modern security programs to keep up is by directing resources to the risks that matter most to their specific organizations.

As a security professional navigating the new challenges constantly cropping up in cybersecurity, it’s critical to understand the ways your organization’s data could be exposed. Safeguarding sensitive information is paramount for organizations across all industries. Whether it's personal data of customers and employees or proprietary business information, the consequences of data breaches can be severe, ranging from financial losses to reputational damage.

Bitsight customers and their third-party partners are well on their way to gaining faster clarity on how their remediation efforts impact their Bitsight Security Ratings. In an effort to support organizations that use Bitsight to prioritize internal security work, we started a phased rollout of Dynamic Remediation, a new initiative that accelerates the rating refresh process and makes it more responsive to meaningful security remediations.