Ransomware Attacks Have Soared 30% in Recent Months

Ransomware attacks have soared 30% since late last year, and they’ve continued that trend so far in 2026, with many of the attacks affecting software and manufacturing supply chains.

Those are some of the takeaways of new research published by Cyble today, which also looked at the top ransomware groups, significant ransomware attacks, new ransomware groups, and recommended cyber defenses.

Ransomware groups claimed 2,018 attacks in the last three months of 2025, averaging just under 673 a month to end a record-setting year. The elevated attack levels continued in January 2026, as the threat groups claimed 679 ransomware victims.

In the first nine months of 2025, ransomware groups claimed an average of 512 victims a month, so the recent trend has been more than 30% above that, Cyble noted. Below is Cyble’s chart of ransomware attacks by month since 2021, which shows a sustained uptrend since mid-2025.

Qilin Remains Top Ransomware Group as CL0P Returns

Qilin was once again the top ransomware group, claiming 115 victims in January. CL0P was second with 93 victims after claiming “scores of victims” in recent weeks in an as-yet unspecified campaign. Akira remained among the leaders with 76 attacks, and newcomers Sinobi and The Gentlemen rounded out the top five (chart below).

“As CL0P tends to claim victims in clusters, such as its exploitation of Oracle E-Business Suite flaws that helped drive supply chain attacks to records in October, new campaigns by the group are noteworthy,” Cyble said. Victims in the latest campaign have included 11 Australia-based companies spanning a range of sectors such as IT, banking and financial services (BFSI), construction, hospitality, professional services, and healthcare.

Other recent CL0P victims have included “a U.S.-based IT services and staffing company, a global hotel company, a major media firm, a UK payment processing company, and a Canada-based mining company engaged in platinum group metals production,” Cyble said.

The U.S. once again led all countries in ransomware attacks (chart below), while the UK and Australia faced a higher-than-normal attack volume. “CL0P’s recent campaign was a factor in both of those increases,” Cyble said.

Construction, professional services and manufacturing remain opportunistic targets for threat actors, while the IT industry also remains a favorite target of ransomware groups, “likely due to the rich target the sector represents and the potential to pivot into downstream customer environments,” Cyble said (chart below).

Ransomware Attacks Hit the Supply Chain

Cyble documented 10 significant ransomware attacks from January in its blog post, many of which had supply chain implications.

One was an Everest ransomware group compromise of “a major U.S. manufacturer of telecommunications networking equipment … Everest claims the data includes PDF documents containing sensitive engineering materials, such as electrical schematics, block diagrams, and service subsystem documentation.”

Sinobi claimed a breach of an India-based IT services company. “Samples shared by the attackers indicate access to internal infrastructure, including Microsoft Hyper-V servers, multiple virtual machines, backups, and storage volumes,” Cyble said.

A Rhysida ransomware group attack on a U.S. life sciences and biotechnology instrumentation company allegedly exposed sensitive information such as engineering blueprints and project documentation.

A RansomHouse attack on a China-based electronics manufacturing for the technology and automotive manufacturers nay have exposed “extensive proprietary engineering and production-related data,” and “data associated with multiple major technology and automotive companies.”

An INC Ransom attack on a Hong Kong–based components manufacturer for the global electronics and automotive industries may have exposed “client-related information associated with more than a dozen major global brands, plus confidential contracts and project documentation for at least three major IT companies.”

Cyble also documented the rise of three new ransomware groups: Green Blood, DataKeeper and MonoLock, with DataKeeper and MonoLock releasing details on technical and payment features aimed at attracting ransomware affiliates to their operations.