Ransomware in 2026: What Recent Cybersecurity Reports Say

Ransomware in 2026 remains a high-volume form of cyber extortion, but the reports reviewed here describe an ecosystem that is changing in how access is obtained, how operators organize, and how victims are pressured. Check Point Research’s The State of Ransomware — Q2 2026 provides the anchor for this analysis, with additional context from Arete, Cynet, CrowdStrike, ThreatDown, TrendAI, and Verizon.

The clearest pattern is not that ransomware has become one single type of attack. Instead, several reports point to the same underlying access economy: exposed edge devices, stolen credentials, social engineering, brokered access, trusted remote tools, and increasingly compressed vulnerability-exploitation timelines. Once access is established, data theft and extortion matter alongside encryption.

This comparison is useful for CISOs, SOC and incident-response leaders, threat-intelligence teams, vulnerability and exposure-management teams, identity teams, and risk leaders who want to understand how different 2026 reports frame the ransomware problem.

Short answer

Ransomware activity remains elevated in 2026, with a small set of major operators still accounting for a large share of visible victims even as more groups enter the market. Across the reports, initial access repeatedly centers on internet-facing appliances, stolen or socially engineered credentials, and trusted access paths. Payment rates appear to be under pressure, but the reports use different datasets and show that ransomware remains economically significant. The practical shift for defenders is to treat ransomware as an access, identity, exposure, data-theft, and resilience problem rather than only an encryption problem.

What the reports agree on

The ransomware market is crowded, but the top remains concentrated

Check Point Research recorded 2,139 victims on monitored data-leak sites in Q2 2026, almost unchanged from Q1 and 33% above Q2 2025. At the same time, the number of active groups increased from 71 to 93, while the top 10 groups still accounted for 57.6% of victims. Qilin remained the most prominent group with 279 victims, narrowly ahead of The Gentlemen with 269.

Cynet’s 1H 2026 view reaches a similar structural conclusion from a different leak-site dataset. Its RansomLook-tracked data recorded 4,180 claimed victim postings from January through June, with the top 10 groups accounting for about 65% of postings. Qilin, The Gentlemen, and Akira led that dataset.

Arete’s incident-response engagements show more concentration around Akira and Qilin in Q1 2026. Together, those two groups accounted for almost one-third of Arete’s ransomware and extortion engagements, while Akira, Qilin, PLAY, and INC Ransom had remained among its top five threat groups since the second half of 2025.

These datasets are not directly interchangeable. Check Point and Cynet are using public leak-site visibility, while Arete is describing incident-response engagements. Read together, however, they support the same broader conclusion: operator names and rankings move, but a relatively small set of established ransomware brands and affiliate ecosystems still account for a large share of observed activity.

Initial access is the common problem beneath different ransomware brands

Check Point’s report argues that defenders should treat initial access as the central fight. Its analysis of The Gentlemen describes an access pipeline built around VPN scanning, brute forcing, brokered credentials, and pre-positioned access.

Arete reports that vulnerability exploitation, compromised credentials, and social engineering were its top initial-access vectors in Q1 2026. It highlights active targeting of Fortinet and WatchGuard perimeter devices, including Qilin exploitation of WatchGuard vulnerabilities, alongside credential reuse, infostealer-derived credentials, and brute-force activity against VPN services.

Cynet’s incident-response data puts even more emphasis on identity. In its 1H 2026 docket, eight in ten host breaches with confirmed root cause began with stolen identity, and 27% of host breaches entered through SSL-VPN. Its report says stolen credentials, socially engineered sessions, and gateway abuse dominated over appliance-CVE exploitation in its own cases.

Verizon provides the broadest breach-level context. In the 2026 DBIR dataset, exploitation of vulnerabilities became the most common known initial-access vector for non-error, non-misuse breaches at 31%. Credential abuse was lower as the first identified vector, but Verizon notes that credentials remained pervasive across attack paths.

ThreatDown describes the same two-sided access problem from its 2025 attack data: phishing and vulnerabilities in internet-facing security appliances, particularly Fortinet firewalls and SonicWall VPNs, were favored entry methods.

The reports differ on which vector is most prominent because their datasets differ. The common message is more stable: ransomware defense begins well before ransomware execution, at the identity layer, remote-access layer, internet-facing edge, and exposed attack surface.

Social engineering is becoming more identity-focused

Several reports describe a move away from simple email phishing toward attacks that manipulate legitimate identity and support workflows.

Arete observed the re-emergence of Microsoft Teams-based social engineering in Q1 2026, including impersonation of internal IT staff, email bombing, OAuth consent flows, Quick Assist, device-code phishing, and ClickFix-style lures.

Cynet similarly describes Microsoft Teams vishing as a recurring pattern in its 1H 2026 cases. Attackers combined email bombing with Teams calls from external tenants and then persuaded users to grant access through Quick Assist, AnyDesk, ScreenConnect, or Bomgar.

CrowdStrike’s financial-services report adds a sector-specific view. It describes help-desk social engineering and vishing as important access techniques and notes that AI-generated voice and text may make impersonation attempts more convincing.

For ransomware teams, this shifts part of the defensive problem from detecting malicious attachments toward validating identity changes, MFA resets, remote-support grants, suspicious sessions, and post-authentication behavior.

Data theft matters more as payment behavior changes

Check Point reports that ransomware payment rates in the Coveware caseload had fallen to about 23% in 2026, down sharply from 2019. Its interpretation is that declining payment rates and improved recovery from encryption are pushing operators toward data-theft extortion, where backups do not remove the pressure.

Other sources show the same directional pressure but different rates. Verizon reports that 69% of ransomware victims in its 2026 DBIR dataset did not pay. Arete reports a 31% payment rate in its Q1 2026 engagements, while also showing meaningful variation by operator: Akira victims paid in almost 48% of Arete engagements involving that group.

The differences matter because these figures come from different populations and methods. They should not be combined into a single industry-wide payment rate.

The operational conclusion is still consistent. Encryption recovery remains important, but organizations also need to detect and limit data collection, staging, and exfiltration. Check Point explicitly argues that data-loss prevention and exfiltration detection now deserve weight comparable to backup and recovery.

Ransomware remains economically significant even when fewer victims pay

Falling payment rates do not mean ransomware has stopped generating large revenues.

Check Point cites Chainalysis data showing more than $820 million in on-chain ransomware payments during 2025, even after a year-over-year decline. Arete reports that its median ransomware payment increased to $250,000 in Q1 2026 from $100,000 in Q1 2025, partly influenced by its high volume of Akira engagements. Verizon, by contrast, reports a lower median payment of $139,875 in its dataset, continuing a downward trend from the previous year.

Again, these figures describe different samples. Their value is in showing that ransomware economics are uneven: payment propensity may be falling overall while specific operators, victim segments, and high-impact incidents can still produce substantial payments.

The edge remains a recurring ransomware entry point

Internet-facing firewalls, VPNs, and remote-access products appear repeatedly across the reports.

Arete details exploitation and credential attacks against Fortinet devices, WatchGuard Firebox appliances, and BeyondTrust remote-access products. Cynet connects Akira-aligned incidents to SonicWall SSL-VPN access and stresses credential reuse and weaknesses around MFA reset paths. ThreatDown also highlights Fortinet firewalls and SonicWall VPNs as major entry routes.

Verizon’s broader dataset strengthens the exposure-management argument: only 26% of critical vulnerabilities in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog were fully remediated by organizations in 2025, and median full-resolution time increased to 43 days.

Check Point goes further by arguing that the time between vulnerability disclosure and exploitation is shrinking from weeks toward hours or days. Whether the initial foothold is a new exploit or valid credentials against a gateway, exposed edge infrastructure is one of the clearest points of convergence across the reports.

AI is accelerating parts of the ransomware ecosystem, but the reports do not describe one uniform AI-driven model

Check Point’s most concrete ransomware example is The Gentlemen. Its leaked internal material showed the group’s administrator using AI coding assistants to build a management panel in about three days. Check Point treats this as evidence that AI can reduce setup time for ransomware tooling without claiming that the whole operation was automated.

Arete is similarly cautious. It says adversarial AI use is expanding but remains mostly generative rather than fully agentic in its current view.

ThreatDown takes a more forward-leaning position. It highlights documented AI-assisted extortion activity and argues that autonomous agents could eventually let smaller crews scale reconnaissance, credential harvesting, network penetration, data analysis, and extortion workflows.

Verizon’s broader breach analysis also finds AI being used across targeting, initial access, vulnerability research, and malware or tooling development.

The strongest source-led conclusion is therefore narrower than “ransomware is autonomous.” AI is already reducing friction in social engineering, coding, vulnerability research, reconnaissance, and analysis. The degree of end-to-end autonomy remains uneven across the reports.

Where the reports differ

Leak-site activity, incident response, and breach datasets measure different things

Check Point and Cynet use public data-leak-site activity to describe the visible ransomware ecosystem. These sources are valuable for group activity and market structure, but claimed victims are controlled by the attackers and do not equal verified incident counts.

Arete’s data comes from ransomware and extortion response engagements, which gives stronger visibility into payment decisions, initial access, and incident mechanics but represents its own caseload.

Verizon uses a much broader incident and breach corpus from many contributors. This makes it useful for comparing ransomware with other breach patterns, but it is not designed as a ransomware-group leaderboard.

CrowdStrike’s report is narrower again: it focuses on financial services. It reports 423 financial-services entities named on big-game-hunting leak sites during its April 2025 to March 2026 reporting period, a 27% increase from the previous 12 months.

The differences are useful rather than contradictory. They show why ransomware should be assessed through several lenses: visible extortion activity, front-line incident response, cross-industry breach data, and sector-specific threat intelligence.

The leading group depends on the dataset and period

Check Point places Qilin first in Q2 2026, with The Gentlemen close behind. Cynet also places Qilin first across the first half of 2026 based on RansomLook postings. Arete, however, saw Akira as its most active ransomware threat in Q1 incident-response engagements, with Qilin second.

ThreatDown’s 2025 data also identifies Qilin as the most active ransomware group for that year and Akira as second.

The practical lesson is not to build ransomware strategy around one group name. Affiliates move between programs, access methods are reused, and public rankings can change quickly. Cynet explicitly warns that the affiliate base can outlast a brand, while Arete documents operators moving between ransomware-as-a-service programs and reusing leaked code.

Sector views change the emphasis

Check Point’s Q2 2026 victim data shows Business Services as the largest sector at 33%, followed by Consumer Goods & Services and Industrial Manufacturing.

Arete’s Q1 incident-response data puts Professional, Scientific & Technical Services first, followed by Manufacturing, Wholesale Trade, and Healthcare & Social Assistance. It interprets the consistency as evidence that many ransomware groups are opportunistic and target exploitable access paths more than specific industries.

CrowdStrike shows why sector context still matters. In financial services, big-game-hunting activity increased 27% by leak-site victim count in its reporting period, and the sector faces ransomware alongside credential theft, data theft, fraud, and state-sponsored intrusion.

The overall picture is therefore both opportunistic and uneven. Ransomware actors often follow accessible paths, but the consequences and operational pressure differ significantly by sector.

Key Cyntari themes related to this topic

• Ransomware & Extortion — The core topic across the reports is ransomware operations, data-leak activity, extortion models, payment behavior, and ransomware-as-a-service.
• Cybercrime, Malware & Attack Techniques — The reports describe exploit chains, remote tooling, living-off-the-land behavior, ransomware deployment, affiliate models, and post-compromise techniques.
• Identity, Phishing & Access Security — Stolen credentials, MFA abuse, Teams vishing, help-desk impersonation, token abuse, and remote-support social engineering are recurring access paths.
• Vulnerability & Exposure Management — Internet-facing VPNs, firewalls, remote-access products, patch speed, and exposure prioritization appear repeatedly in ransomware intrusion paths.
• SOC, Detection & Response — Several reports focus on detecting post-authentication abuse, lateral movement, remote tooling, exfiltration, and rapid ransomware deployment.
• Cyber Risk & Resilience — Recovery, backups, business disruption, payment decisions, and resilience remain central to limiting ransomware impact.
• Data Security & Privacy — The shift toward exfiltration-first extortion increases the importance of detecting data staging, movement, and unauthorized disclosure.
• AI Security & AI Governance — AI is linked to social engineering, coding, vulnerability research, attack scaling, and faster exploitation, although the extent of automation varies by source.
• Threat Actors, Geopolitics & Intelligence — The reports track major ransomware groups, affiliate movement, criminal-market infrastructure, and law-enforcement pressure.
• Cyber Insurance & Economics — Ransom demands, payment rates, payment sizes, laundering infrastructure, and broader financial effects are important parts of the ransomware picture.

What this means for security teams

The combined evidence suggests that ransomware programs should be organized around the attack path rather than the encryptor.

First, reduce reachable exposure at the edge. VPNs, firewalls, remote-access appliances, and other internet-facing systems repeatedly appear as ransomware footholds. Patch speed matters, but so does knowing which exposed systems are actually reachable and valuable to attackers.

Second, treat identity as part of ransomware prevention. Phishing-resistant MFA, hardened MFA-reset processes, detection of suspicious sessions and automation clients, help-desk verification, and monitoring of credential exposure all address access paths described across Check Point, Arete, Cynet, CrowdStrike, and Verizon.

Third, govern legitimate remote tools. Quick Assist, AnyDesk, ScreenConnect, RMM agents, PowerShell, RDP, and other trusted tools can carry an intrusion without obvious malware. Detection therefore needs to distinguish expected administration from malicious use.

Fourth, detect data theft before encryption. A ransomware response plan that depends only on backups does not address exfiltration-first extortion. Security teams need visibility into unusual collection, staging, cloud uploads, and outbound data movement.

Fifth, prepare for faster intrusion cycles. Check Point, ThreatDown, Verizon, and Arete all describe acceleration in vulnerability research, exploit development, automation, or attacker workflow. Manual remediation and investigation queues become less effective as attacker timelines compress.

Finally, avoid overfitting defenses to the ransomware brand that currently leads a leak-site ranking. Group names change faster than the access methods and infrastructure they depend on.

Recommended reports to read

Check Point Research — The State of Ransomware — Q2 2026 is the best anchor report in this set for understanding the visible ransomware market in the second quarter of 2026. It combines group rankings, victim volume, payment economics, law-enforcement disruption, sector and geography data, and a detailed look at The Gentlemen.

Arete — Crimeware Report: Cyber Threat Trends and Highlights — Q1 2026 is especially useful for incident-response context. It adds data on ransom demands and payments, active ransomware groups, vulnerabilities exploited, and observed initial-access methods.

Cynet — CyOps ECHO Report — 1H 2026 is useful for connecting ransomware to identity compromise, SSL-VPN access, trusted-tool abuse, and front-line incident-response telemetry. Its distinction between observed cases and open-source ransomware intelligence is also valuable when comparing datasets.

Verizon — 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report provides the broadest context. It helps place ransomware inside the wider breach landscape and shows how vulnerability exploitation, credentials, the human element, third-party involvement, and payment behavior intersect with ransomware.

ThreatDown — State of Malware 2026 is particularly useful for understanding operational attack patterns: remote encryption, living off the land, blind spots, attacks on security tooling and backups, edge exploitation, and the report’s forward-looking analysis of AI-assisted cybercrime.

CrowdStrike — 2026 Financial Services Threat Landscape Report is the most useful sector-specific report in this set. It shows how ransomware and big-game hunting appear within financial services alongside access brokers, social engineering, and broader eCrime activity.

TrendAI — 2026 Cyber Risk Report is less ransomware-specific than the other reports, but it adds useful exposure-management context. Its risk, identity, configuration, vulnerability, and attack-path data help explain the conditions that can turn an initial foothold into a larger intrusion.

Questions these reports help answer

• Which ransomware groups were most active in early and mid-2026?
• Is the ransomware ecosystem becoming more fragmented or still concentrated?
• How are ransomware groups gaining initial access in 2026?
• What role do VPNs, firewalls, and remote-access appliances play in ransomware intrusions?
• How important are stolen credentials and identity attacks to ransomware?
• Are ransomware victims paying less often?
• Why is data theft becoming more important in ransomware extortion?
• How are AI tools changing ransomware operations and vulnerability exploitation?
• What can security teams do to reduce ransomware exposure before encryption occurs?
• Why do ransomware statistics differ across threat-intelligence, incident-response, and breach reports?