If you pay a hacker’s ransom, chances are that they’ll come back for more

The report outlines how modern ransomware and extortion operations have evolved from one-time ransom payments into multi-stage extortion schemes where attackers retain stolen data and make repeated demands; it cites incidents such as Klue, Change Healthcare (affecting ~192 million people), and findings from the LockBit takedown to show payments do not guarantee deletion and often invite further extortion.