Threat actors are increasingly trying to grind business to a halt

Unit 42's annual incident response report found that among nearly 500 major incidents in 2024, 86% involved business-disrupting extortion tactics—combining encryption (92% of cases), data theft (60%), and direct operational disruption—to increase leverage; median initial ransom demands rose ~80% to $1.25M while median negotiated payments were about $267,500, with critical sectors like healthcare and manufacturing often targeted.