What happened
Zscaler’s latest ThreatLabz Ransomware Report shows a sharp rise in ransomware activity. The company recorded a one hundred forty-six percent increase in blocked ransomware attempts and a major jump in data theft used for extortion.
Who is affected
Manufacturing, technology, and healthcare face the highest risk. Oil and gas also saw strong growth in attacks. The United States accounted for about half of all recorded incidents in the period covered.
Why CISOs should care
Ransomware groups now favor data theft over simple encryption. This raises the risk of leaks, service disruption, and penalties from regulators. The findings show that older security controls do not match how fast attackers evolve, especially as groups use automation and AI to scale their operations.
3 practical actions
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Tighten exposure and segmentation
Review all internet facing systems, remove unnecessary access and apply segmentation so a breach cannot move across the network. -
Strengthen data protection
Use data loss prevention, monitor for unusual data transfers and inspect cloud and encrypted traffic to catch exfiltration early. -
Move toward Zero Trust
Verify users and devices, apply least privilege and keep internal applications hidden from the public internet.