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Cybersecurity in the Age of Ransomware. It’s More Than Simply Having Insurance.
Cyber Threats
Combating Ransomware
In many ways, cybersecurity insurance is not so different from car or home insurance. In short, it’s a way to transfer risk. If a cyber incident occurs, insurance can help organizations gain a level of mitigating control and recoup costs, whether they come from direct damages, lawsuits, fines, or breach notification expenses.
Although cybersecurity insurance has been around a while, the industry has had to evolve with the threat landscape — and the advent of ransomware changed everything.
In the early 2000s, cyber insurance policies required little more than a simple questionnaire for underwriting and typically only offered coverage in the event of a breach of customer or other sensitive data. If a company lost someone’s personal data and was required to notify them, the policy would cover related expenses. While notifications have been known to get pricey, sometimes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, the expense is nothing when compared to that of today’s ransomware threat.
Cybercriminals take the path of least resistance
Today, cybercriminals don’t want credit card numbers. They don’t even really want companies’ data. In fact, one day, they began to think, “What if I don’t move data? What if I leave it right where it is, but encrypt it and demand a ransom?”
It’s simpler. Cybercriminals know that companies need their data to survive — however, data theft is a complex process that requires sophisticated skills. Not only do the bad guys have to know how to break in and find the right data, but they also need to know how to remove it. It’s far easier to hold sensitive data for ransom than to try to exfiltrate and monetize it. And now with ransomware as a service (RaaS), anyone can buy ransomware on the web — no sophisticated skills required.
Easy prey. What’s also made ransomware so disruptive is its impact on smaller companies. Often, they are easier to breach, can’t restore their systems, and thus, have no choice but to pay ransoms.
Reduced risk. With the dawn of digital currency, the bad guys no longer had to meet at a graveyard with a hostage in a car trunk in the hopes of pulling off a successful “exchange.” By removing physical boundaries, enabling anonymity, simplifying the payment process, cryptocurrency has helped ransomware become the US$6 trillion business it is today. Now, all the bad guys have to say is, “Pay up or else.” Or else, they’ll continue to deny you access to your data. Or else they’ll publish it on the Dark Web.
Is cyber insurance making companies more secure?
Gone are the days of answering five questions on a cybersecurity insurance application. In fact, there are major carriers that won’t even provide a quote unless a business can verify it uses multifactor authentication (MFA) for all remote access, has offline backups, and has a cybersecurity program. These are now must-haves.
This greater scrutiny surrounding the application process is forcing companies of all sizes to build formalized security programs that can identify and address risks. For instance, what’s the likelihood of an employee clicking on an email or link that enables malware to run across the environment and encrypt everything, including backups?
While there’s no way to eliminate all risks, there are ways to make it harder for the bad guys to succeed. In addition to using MFA for all remote access and administrative tasks and having offline copies of backups that are disconnected from the domain, it’s important to:
Have — and practice — both incident response and business continuity plans in place.
Implement a behavior-based endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution for serious security monitoring that can stop ransomware.
Educate employees. This means having more than a quarterly newsletter on security and rather, getting into the guts of the company culture and tapping into the quality-conscious mindset to ensure that security becomes another aspect of product quality. Everyone needs to understand that if a product isn’t secure, it isn’t a quality product.
In other words, the more you can do to prove you’re a good driver, the more likely an insurance company will be to grant you a policy.
What is the future of cyber insurance?
Ransomware was the first systemic risk that was cross border and cross sector. It shook up the cyber insurance market because companies couldn’t hedge their bet in one area of risk around the world in one sector because everybody was getting hit. Today, insurance companies have been able to level set and now play a critical role not only in helping to transfer some of the risks that companies have, but also in helping to identify best practices that, when implemented by the companies, will ultimately reduce risk.
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Article
Anubis Utilizing Custom Backdoor and BYOVD Tools in Attacks
In October, researchers observed the Anubis ransomware group using a new custom backdoor named Lindnor, which masqueraded as a Chrome component and VMware file and sent the process ID, operating system version, file path, computer name, username, domain, and logon server to a command-and-control (C2) server. Threat actors dropped multiple executables to help terminate security services, along with five publicly known vulnerable drivers. They also installed the legitimate remote access tool AnyDesk and a separate tool to run it in Safe Mode, likely to maintain access when security software was not fully running.
Arete recently observed Anubis using similar tools and tactics, in particular Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) techniques and AnyDesk for remote access, alongside PowerShell-based loaders to support defense evasion, privilege escalation, and malicious payload execution.
Analyst Comments
The observed activity reflects an evolving, multi-stage intrusion approach focused on establishing persistent access, evading security controls, and enabling follow-on malicious activity. Notably, the deployment of custom backdoors such as Lindnor indicates a shift toward more tailored tooling designed to maintain covert access. BYOVD techniques and PowerShell-based loaders have also been observed facilitating defense evasion and ultimately executing malicious binary payloads. Collectively, these activities demonstrate increasingly sophisticated tradecraft focused on persistent access and circumventing endpoint security controls.
Sources
New Lindnor Backdoor and Glut of Security Killers Used in Ransomware Attack on U.S. Org
Article
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: October 2026
Although Akira once again emerged as the most active ransomware group in October, overall ransomware and extortion activity was not dominated by any single threat group and instead remained widely distributed among a variety of threat actors, continuing the trend that began around August. Arete identified 31 unique named threat groups in October, the most observed in a single month so far in 2026. In addition to Akira, Settra, and The Gentlemen were among the three most active groups. Several new threat actors also emerged, including BYOD, Kubera Team, QWCrypt, AoQin, Emperador, Osiris Team, and Cinder, with Cinder assessed as possibly part of a threat actor cluster affiliated with the former BlackFile group.
Figure 1. Activity from the top 10 threat groups in October 2026
Throughout the month, analysts at Arete identified several trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
PHP2Shell emerged as one of the most significant threats in October, with increasing exploitation of the critical PHP vulnerabilities CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Other notable vulnerabilities included CVE-2026-104286 affecting FortiMail, and CVE-2026-102255, a critical pre-authentication Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) vulnerability affecting SonicWall SMA1000 appliances, highlighting continued threat actor interest in internet-facing enterprise infrastructure.
International law enforcement operations against cybercriminal groups continued to make headlines in October. German authorities announced the arrest of 28-year-old Russian national Vladimir K., suspected of being a senior operator within the Qilin Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group. Separately, the FBI arrested an individual with suspected links to ShinyHunters, adding to recent law enforcement activity targeting ransomware and extortion groups, including the disruption of KillSec. While Vladimir K.’s arrest has not yet had a notable impact on Qilin’s operational activity, it could provide law enforcement with greater insight into the group’s infrastructure and affiliate network, potentially supporting further disruption efforts.
In early October, “The Luna Moth Files” exposed several files containing alleged internal communications associated with Luna Moth, also known as Silent Ransom Group, revealing insights into the group’s social engineering, data extortion, and victim negotiation operations. However, several claims remain unverified, and the exposure has not notably disrupted the group’s activity thus far, as it was among the top threat actors Arete observed throughout the month.
Sources
Arete Internal
Article
PHP2Shell Exploitation Update
PHP2Shell exploitation activity continues to increase globally, with threat actors targeting the critical PHP remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. Researchers recently identified low-volume scanning targeting unpatched or partially mitigated hosts across multiple countries and sectors, and the activity is assessed with moderate confidence as linked to a Korean-speaking operator associated with the Lazarus Group ecosystem. While PHP2Shell (CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619) has been patched in PHP 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35, the separately identified CVE-2026-115560 remains unpatched.
What’s Notable and Unique
PHP2Shell vulnerabilities can cause memory corruption due to improper error handling, potentially allowing threat actors to achieve remote code execution on vulnerable PHP servers.
Observed activity includes mass scanning, PHP environment fingerprinting, exploitation attempts, credential and secret theft attempts, and attempts to deliver second-stage payloads and malware.
Successful in-the-wild exploitation has also been reported against honeypots, resulting in shell command execution and the retrieval of additional payloads, demonstrating the potential for follow-on malicious activity.
Mitigations
Organizations should prioritize upgrading internet-facing PHP deployments to patched versions, migrating unsupported PHP versions, updating embedded and containerized PHP runtimes, and implementing available Web Application Firewall (WAF) protections as a temporary defense-in-depth measure.
Analyst Comments
PHP2Shell poses a significant security concern due to its potential to enable unauthenticated remote code execution on vulnerable PHP servers. The progression from mass scanning and exploitation attempts to reports of successful command execution demonstrates the potential for these vulnerabilities to support initial access and subsequent malicious activity. Arete has been closely monitoring PHP2Shell exploitation activity and regularly reviewing and updating related indicators to support detection and blocking efforts. Given the potential for remote exploitation and follow-on activity, PHP2Shell represents a high-priority initial-access risk, emphasizing the importance of timely patching and remediation of affected PHP environments.
Sources
PHP shares mitigation for new RCE vulnerability with no patch
PHP2Shell Exploitation Attempts Continue Amid Suspected N. Korea Global Scanning Activity
PHP2Shell Exploit Attempts Hit Millions as Attackers Try to Deploy Mirai Malware
Advisory: PHP2Shell Vulnerabilities (CVE-2026-109618, CVE-2026-109619)
Article
LiteLLM Supply-Chain Compromise
A software supply-chain attack compromised the release pipeline of LiteLLM, a widely used open-source Python SDK and AI gateway. Attackers leveraged the compromised pipeline on October 21st to publish a malicious LiteLLM version through PyPI and associated Docker registries. The affected release, LiteLLM 1.107.0, contained malware designed to steal credentials, sensitive configuration data, private keys, browser information, and other secrets from compromised systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
The incident is particularly significant because LiteLLM provides a common API for applications to interact with AI models from multiple providers. It is reported that the project had approximately 61,800 GitHub stars and 92 million monthly PyPI downloads.
Rather than modifying the core LiteLLM application source code, the threat actors reportedly tampered with the installation package itself. The malware was designed for broad credential and information theft and encrypted the collected data before uploading it to the attacker's endpoint.
The compromise went beyond one-time credential theft. A malicious Python component launched a detached loader that checked a GitHub-hosted pointer every hour and could download Python code from an external server for execution on the compromised machine. This provided threat actors with a mechanism for subsequent remote code execution.
Analyst Comments
Although the malicious packages were subsequently removed, simply uninstalling or deleting the affected LiteLLM package may not be sufficient, because malicious Python startup files or the detached loader could remain on the host. All exposed information should be rotated immediately, and infected systems should be isolated and rebuilt from clean backups. The most recent clean release prior to the attack, LiteLLM 1.106.2, is currently the suggested recovery version.
Sources
LiteLLM release pipeline hacked to distribute info-stealer malware
LiteLLM 1.107.0 Compromised: Python Startup Hooks Steal Cloud, AI, and Proxy Credentials
The Collector Reaches Beyond Provider API Keys