Understanding and Responding to Ransomware

This report summarizes the evolving ransomware landscape, highlighting growth in RaaS and extortion tactics (double/triple extortion), common ransomware types, attack stages, and notable incidents such as the LockBit compromise of MCNA Dental (700 GB exfiltrated and PII for 8.9 million people) and MGM’s $10M payout; it concludes with defensive recommendations including 3-2-1 backups, cloud security hardening, identity and access controls, vulnerability management, and roles for MDR and IR.