How Ransomware Works

This report summarizes the growing ransomware threat landscape, documenting increased prevalence and costs, the emergence of Ransomware-as-a-Service and extortion techniques (double/triple extortion), common ransomware types, and a notable LockBit incident (MCNA) where 700GB and PII for 8.9M individuals were exfiltrated and leaked; it concludes with pragmatic defenses including 3-2-1 backups, cloud hardening, identity controls (MFA/AD hardening), vulnerability management, 24x7 monitoring (MDR) and when to engage incident response (IR).