Renew Your Ransomware Defense with CISA's Updated Guidance

MS-ISAC’s CTI team assesses that financially motivated ransomware groups will continue to heavily target U.S. SLTT organizations, leveraging common initial access vectors (exposed RDP/VPN, compromised credentials, phishing) and double extortion tactics. Reporting shows rising payments ($449M in H1 2023) and a 74% YoY increase in incidents, and the report directs defenders to the updated #StopRansomware Guide and the Blueprint for Ransomware Defense for defense‑in‑depth practices—offline backups, MFA, patching, segmentation/zero trust, and an incident response checklist—mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and CIS Controls (IG1 ~78% coverage; full controls ~92%).