Article
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: August 2025
Arete Analysis
Cybersecurity Trends
Akira again dominated ransomware activity in August, and Qilin remained the second-most active group for the second month. Throughout August, analysts at Arete identified several distinct trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
Akira had the highest share of ransomware attacks observed by Arete in a single month since the group emerged in April 2023. The group was responsible for almost half of the ransomware and extortion attacks in August. Qilin also remained active in August, albeit not to the degree that Akira was. Combined, these two ransomware groups were responsible for over 64% of the activity for the entire month.
The recent surge in Akira attacks was originally thought to be attributed to a suspected zero-day in Gen 7 SonicWall firewalls with SSLVPN enabled. However, SonicWall released an update stating that the attacks were not related to any new zero-day vulnerability, but instead are correlated with CVE-2024-40766, an older SonicWall VPN access control flaw first detected in August 2024 and previously exploited by Akira in late 2024 and early 2025.
Arete is aware of two ongoing supply chain attacks involving data exfiltration. The first involves threat actors using stolen OAuth credentials from the Salesloft SalesDrift platform to exfiltrate data from Salesforce instances. Additionally, in late August, threat actors published malicious versions of Nx—an open-source build system that provides tools and techniques for software developers—to the npm registry. This second supply chain attack potentially exposes sensitive developer assets, including cryptocurrency wallets, GitHub and npm tokens, and SSH keys.
In August, the US Treasury Department also announced sanctions against the Grinex crypto exchange, the spiritual successor to Garantex. Following law enforcement action against Garantex in March 2025, Grinex was created by Garantex employees to enable sanctions evasion efforts. Subsequently, Grinex became a hot spot for illicitly obtained funds from ransomware, extortion, and other fraudulent activities.
In addition to the high number of Akira attacks, the number of unique ransomware variants was also slightly higher than in July, with 17 unique identified ransomware and extortion groups observed in August:
Figure 1. Activity from the top 5 threat groups in August 2025
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CMS Vulnerability Leads to ClickFix Campaign
Threat actors compromised at least 700 education and technology websites in a recent ClickFix campaign by exploiting a critical SQL injection flaw (CVE-2026-26980) in the Ghost content management system (CMS). Adversaries combined the vulnerability with the ClickFix social engineering tactic to steal admin keys and inject a malicious JavaScript that delivers a fake Cloudflare or CAPTCHA verification pop-up, tricking victims into copying and pasting a malicious command into their systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
Rather than targeting the end user first, this campaign is unique in its initial exploitation of the system, followed by social engineering attempts. This hybrid attack style is likely being leveraged to bypass traditional defenses.
This recent campaign also highlights how trusted web properties can be weaponized at scale and coupled with unpatched CMS vulnerabilities. Rather than using the CMS compromise to perpetrate a single attack, threat actors turned it into a supply-chain attack that ultimately affected over 700 trusted websites.
Analyst Comments
As network defenders and their tools enhance threat detection capabilities, adversaries increasingly seek methods to bypass these defenses. By combining vulnerability exploitation, social engineering techniques, and staging for ancillary attacks, this campaign successfully bypassed traditional defenses and inflicted significant impact. Defending against hybrid cyberattacks requires comprehensive security controls beyond simply patching vulnerabilities. Organizations should focus on limiting movement within the environment, detecting abuse of trusted applications, and preventing end-user manipulation.
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Threat Actors Leverage Fake JPEG Files for Initial Access
In a recent campaign, researchers observed threat actors using fake JPEG image files as a delivery mechanism to initiate the deployment of additional malicious components. The false JPEG files are typically distributed via phishing emails or other social engineering-based lures, and are actually PowerShell-based malware that deploys a trojanized version of ConnectWise ScreenConnect to establish and maintain persistence in the compromised environment.
What’s Notable and Unique
This campaign leverages JPEG images as the initial lure, where the images are not merely decoys but part of the infection workflow. Victims are typically led to download or open an image that triggers hidden execution logic or redirects them to a payload-delivery sequence that initiates later stages of the intrusion chain.
The attack chain is designed to blend into legitimate environments, making detection more difficult. Execution typically relies on scripted or native Windows components, often including PowerShell or other living-off-the-land binaries, enabling fileless or near-fileless execution and reducing forensic artifacts on disk.
The multistage design ensures that the initial JPEG does not directly contain the full payload but instead triggers retrieval or decryption steps that progressively assemble the final malicious components in memory.
Analyst Comments
This campaign illustrates how threat actors continue to blur the line between legitimate file handling and malicious execution chains, indicating potential overlap with remote management or administrative tooling. The use of JPEG-based staging combined with script-based execution reflects a broader evolution toward a stealth-first intrusion design, in which file formats serve as triggers rather than payload containers.
Sources
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