Article
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
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: July 2026
INC Ransom was the most active threat group in July, while activity remained relatively distributed among multiple threat groups, with 19 unique groups observed throughout the month. Alongside INC Ransom, Qilin, Global Secret Group, Anubis, and DragonForce rounded out the five most active threat groups observed in July. Several emerging threat actors were also observed during the month, including Booba Team, Settra, and Global Secret Group.
Figure 1. Activity from the top 3 threat groups in July 2026
Throughout the month, analysts at Arete identified several trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
In July 2026, Global Secret Group emerged as a new threat actor, leveraging the leaked LockBit 3.0 (LockBit Black) source code. Although the group began operations in June 2026, it quickly accumulated a substantial number of victims on its data leak site (DLS). The group operates through TOR-based negotiation portals and qTox communications. Notably, its DLS provides step-by-step guidance on purchasing Bitcoin, including references to Coinbase and Binance, demonstrating a streamlined, victim-focused extortion process designed to simplify ransom payments.
Similar to Fulcrumsec, the recently emerged Settra ransomware group appears to leverage AI-driven analysis of stolen data, publishing detailed and highly structured victim reports on its DLS. Additionally, a potential EDR-disabling tool, edr_blind.exe, was identified in multiple cases, suggesting a focus on defense-evasion capabilities.
With the continuation of the FortiBleed campaign, researchers have now identified compromised FortiGate credentials being leveraged by both the INC and Lynx ransomware operations. Analysis revealed direct operational links between the groups, including shared ransomware infrastructure and overlap between FortiBleed victims and ransomware targets. The operators are also incorporating AI to enhance various stages of the attack lifecycle and increase operational efficiency and scale. Notably, Arete also observed an INC ransomware intrusion leveraging FortiBleed-derived access in July, reinforcing the campaign's role as a precursor to ransomware deployment.
Sources
Arete Internal
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Cyber Campfire: June Threat Trends & Insights
In this episode of Arete’s Cyber Campfire podcast, our Threat Intelligence Team discusses trends, statistics, and emerging threat actors from June 2026. Tune in for firsthand insights on today’s threat landscape that can enhance your approach to cyber risk.
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Current: Misconfigured Server Reveals Multiple Phishing Campaigns
Researchers uncovered three Microsoft 365 phishing campaigns after discovering a misconfigured HTTP server that exposed a threat actor’s phishing tools, configurations, victim logs, and operational infrastructure. The investigation revealed two operators using custom Evilginx-based adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing frameworks to steal authentication sessions and bypass MFA protections. A third operator abused Microsoft’s OAuth Device Code flow by tricking victims into completing authentication through Microsoft’s legitimate login process, allowing attackers to obtain valid access and refresh tokens without stealing passwords. The largest campaign compromised at least 218 victims across 12 countries, primarily targeting corporate Microsoft 365 accounts, with refresh tokens enabling persistent access. Researchers also identified the use of remote management tools for maintaining access, AI-assisted development of phishing tooling, and links to broader Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) ecosystems, highlighting how commodity frameworks and automation are lowering the barrier for sophisticated identity-based attacks.
What’s Notable and Unique
The campaigns demonstrate the continued shift from traditional credential theft to identity- and token-based compromise, in which attackers target authentication sessions, cookies, and OAuth tokens rather than relying solely on password theft. By obtaining valid authentication artifacts, attackers can access Microsoft 365 environments while bypassing conventional MFA protections.
The use of Evilginx-based AiTM frameworks highlights how publicly available phishing tools have evolved into effective MFA-bypass platforms. These frameworks proxy legitimate login pages, capture authenticated sessions, and allow attackers to reuse valid sessions without requiring victims’ credentials again.
The OAuth Device Code flow abuse represents a different attack method, in which attackers leverage a legitimate Microsoft authentication mechanism to obtain tokens after victims approve the request. This approach bypasses password theft entirely by abusing trusted authentication workflows.
The exposed infrastructure provided insight into attacker operations, including phishing configurations, victim tracking data, remote administration tools, and evidence of AI-assisted development. The findings demonstrate how phishing ecosystems now provide reusable tooling and automation that reduce the technical expertise required to conduct large-scale identity attacks.
Analyst Comments
These Microsoft 365 phishing campaigns demonstrate the ongoing evolution of identity-focused attacks, as adversaries increasingly target authentication sessions, tokens, and legitimate cloud authorization mechanisms to bypass traditional security controls. The combination of AiTM phishing, OAuth abuse, remote management tools, and PhaaS infrastructure enables threat actors to maintain persistent access while blending into legitimate cloud activity.
The growing availability of phishing frameworks and AI-assisted attack development highlights the need for continuous identity security improvements beyond traditional phishing defenses. Arete recommends that organizations strengthen identity monitoring, adopt phishing-resistant MFA where possible, review OAuth application permissions, monitor token activity, and implement conditional access policies to detect and restrict suspicious Microsoft 365 authentication behavior. Security teams should also monitor post-compromise indicators such as abnormal mailbox access, suspicious application consent, unauthorized remote tools, and unusual sign-in activity.
Sources
One Misconfigured Server, Three Active Campaigns: Full exposure of three AiTM Phishing Operators
Misconfigured Server Reveals Three Evilginx Phishing Operations Targeting Microsoft 365
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Digital Forensics Meets the Courtroom: Insights on Expert Witness and Cyber-Related Litigation
In this episode of Bytes of Insight, host Vinny Sakore and special guest Dr. Bruce Hartley, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Advisory Services at Arete, discuss the evolving role of digital forensics and expert witness work in cybersecurity litigation. Tune in for firsthand insights on how Arete conducts post-breach investigations, what it takes to undergo cross-examination on the stand, and how emerging threats like AI-driven social engineering and third-party breaches are reshaping the advisory landscape.