By most accounts, ransomware groups made less money in 2025 than in 2024, both in overall payments and average payment size. This occurred despite a significant increase in attack volume: according to Recorded Future Intelligence, publicly reported attacks rose to 7,200 in 2025 compared to 4,900 in 2024, demonstrating a 47% increase.
For context, Recorded Future classifies both encryption attacks and data theft attacks with an extortion component under the ransomware umbrella. While exact numbers are difficult to isolate, approximately 50% of all attacks we track fall into the data theft and extortion category.
This declining profitability is driving ransomware groups to expand and evolve their tactics. Here are three trends organizations should prepare for heading into 2026.
With affiliates earning less and many ransomware operators abandoning the Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model to operate independently, remaining RaaS operations must offer more value to attract and retain affiliates. One increasingly common differentiator: bundled DDoS services.
The newly formed Chaos ransomware group (distinct from the older group of the same name) exemplifies this trend, providing DDoS capabilities to all affiliates. While this tactic isn't new—for example, REvil previously offered similar services—it fell out of favor for a period. Now, with fewer ransom payments to share, RaaS operators are reintroducing premium services to maintain their affiliate networks.
Stolen credentials, vulnerability exploitation, and phishing remain by far the most common initial access vectors for ransomware groups, with social engineering as a distant but growing fourth method. However, there has been a notable increase in ransomware groups working with native English speakers to recruit corporate insiders.
The most public example came earlier this year when a ransomware group attempted to recruit a reporter at the BBC. But this represents only the visible tip of a larger trend. Private reporting indicates that insider recruitment attempts increased significantly throughout 2025 and will likely continue growing, especially if workforce reductions at major companies persist into 2026.
According to a recent FBI advisory, ransomware groups have begun exploiting gig work platforms to carry out attacks when remote methods fail. In one documented case, an attacker successfully executed a social engineering help desk scam but couldn't install their tools remotely due to security controls. Their solution: recruiting a gig worker through a legitimate platform to physically enter corporate offices and steal data.
The gig worker was unaware they were working for hackers, believing they were performing a legitimate IT task. The targeted employee thought they were assisting someone from the help desk. While this attack vector remains rare, the accessibility and global reach of gig work platforms means other groups could replicate this approach with minimal effort.
The ransomware ecosystem has seen tremendous growth among actors and groups operating outside of Russia.
Recorded Future believes that 2026 will be the first year the number of new ransomware actors outside Russia exceeds those emerging within it. This doesn't indicate a decline in Russian-based operations; instead, it reflects how dramatically the global ransomware ecosystem has expanded.
Understanding emerging ransomware tactics is the first step toward defending against them. To stay ahead of threat actors and protect your organization:
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