Article
Endpoint Detection and Response: The Closest Thing to a Silver Bullet to Stop Ransomware
Security Recommendations
In its recent report “Combating Ransomware,” the Ransomware Task Force says there’s no silver bullet to solving the ransomware challenge. Instead, the group touts a multi-pronged approach and provides an extensive list of recommendations to help companies better defend against this growing threat.
While I don’t disagree, for example, that coordinated global action and greater awareness to the severity of this threat are necessary, I couldn’t help but notice a glaring omission from their list: behavioral endpoint detection and response (EDR).
Why aren’t more companies using EDR solutions to combat ransomware?
For our clients, our number one recommendation to prevent or recover from a ransomware attack is to deploy endpoint protection. It’s the closest thing to a ransomware silver bullet you’re going to find — and should be a best practice.
EDR solutions are not based on malicious signatures that ransomers can easily evade. Rather, behavior-based EDR tools search for suspicious patterns of behavior that could indicate malware. And unlike antivirus, they are capable of spotting yet unknown malware, including more sophisticated threats like zero-day attacks; and they combine real-time continuous monitoring with automated analysis and response.
Cost effectiveness of EDR
EDR is not costly, especially considering the potential expense of a ransomware attack. Beyond the ransom payment itself come all the associated attack costs. As Kevin Baker detailed in his “Hidden Costs of Cybercrime” blog, companies must understand that, in the event of an attack, they will be paying for: remediation, repair, restoration of data and IT infrastructure, legal counsel, litigation defense, breach notification, business downtime, reputation damage and lost customer trust, regulatory fines, and increased insurance rates.
Many companies choose to stick with traditional antivirus solutions because they are a slightly less expensive option than EDR. But while EDR may cost more upfront, it’s much more cost-effective in the long run. And too many companies are realizing this after it’s too late, once they’ve been hacked and painfully understand they should have and need to invest more in security.
Ease of deployment and effectiveness
EDR is as quick and easy to deploy as a traditional antivirus solution. Like antivirus, EDR is agent-based, and organizations can automatically install it via a group policy or on an individual basis and, within a day, begin to reap the solution’s benefits.
When Arete’s incident response teams are called on to help victims recover from ransomware attacks — on average, 50 cases per month — this speed and ease of deployment are critical. They immediately deploy EDR technology to contain the attack and provide clients with a clean, safe environment to restore their data and operations.
On top of EDR solutions being intuitive and not requiring a high-level of security expertise, they are incredibly effective, offering functionality far beyond the basic scanning, detection, and “known” malware removal of a traditional antivirus tool. They are designed to protect all endpoints, automatically identify suspicious activity, and mitigate threats in real time. In the case of ransomware, this can mean stopping ransomware encryption, lateral movement, and data exfiltration.
At Arete, we’ve only seen threat actors successfully attack behavior-based EDR systems four times in the past five years. In two of those cases, the client had not fully deployed the EDR solution to all endpoints on the network; in the other two, the client had not protected the EDR management console with two-factor access control, which allowed the attackers to turn off the EDR system.
By comparison, antivirus solutions continue to fall a bit short on effectiveness. Because they are based on pre-populated signatures, attackers can easily evade them with simple changes to their code and sadly, almost all the ransomware victims Arete has worked with have had an antivirus solution in place that failed to detect or block the attack.
If the government can’t solve the ransomware problem, what can I do?
It’s good that the U.S. and international governments are calling for actions to end the ransomware scourge — a threat the director of the FBI has likened to the 9/11 terror attacks. Unfortunately, time is not on anyone’s side.
The daily costs of ongoing ransomware attacks to companies and their clients are too high to wait for possible government action — especially when a cost-effective, near-silver-bullet solution is at hand. If organizations, of any size, want to put ransomware attackers out of business, they should look to deploy behavior-based EDR systems today.
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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
Article
French Supermarket Cyberattack Highlights Risks in Exposed Refrigeration Controllers
Hundreds of French supermarkets were reportedly affected by a cyberattack in which threat actors compromised internet-connected refrigeration controllers and manipulated temperature and defrost settings, which caused refrigeration units to overheat, resulting in widespread food spoilage and significant financial loss. Impacted refrigeration systems were associated with Danfoss, Copeland, and Dixell, and demonstrated how vulnerabilities in industrial control systems (ICS) can disrupt physical operations without relying on conventional data theft or encryption. The attack also raised concerns about the wider exposure of similar devices, as thousands of refrigeration management interfaces remain accessible from the public internet. The incident highlights the growing risk posed by insecure operational technology (OT), particularly where legacy equipment and remote-management interfaces lack adequate security controls.
What’s Notable and Unique
Researchers identified approximately 2,765 internet-accessible Danfoss AK-SM 800A interfaces during assessment. This figure reflects the scope of that research and should not be interpreted as a current count of exposed devices. Publicly accessible management interfaces increase the opportunity for unauthorized access to industrial equipment.
Research also identified several security flaws in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A platform, including an authentication bypass command injection that could enable remote code execution and a weakness involving web-server configuration changes. Danfoss addressed these findings through firmware updates.
Authorities reported compromised Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC systems, alongside Copeland XWEB and Dixell XWEB monitoring platforms.
Analyst Comments
The incident demonstrates the business consequences of insufficiently secured industrial infrastructure and reinforces the need to integrate OT security into enterprise risk management. Organizations operating connected facility systems should establish clear ownership of industrial assets, enforce secure remote-access policies, and prioritize remediation based on exposure and operational criticality. The findings also highlight the importance of coordinating security teams with facilities and engineering personnel to ensure that protective measures do not compromise essential operations. A risk-based approach to OT security can help organizations reduce exposure while maintaining the availability and reliability of critical equipment.
Sources
France Supermarket Hacks Expose Risks of Internet-Facing Refrigeration Systems
Freeze the Controller, Defrost the Food: Uncovering Vulnerabilities in Danfoss Refrigeration Controllers
Attackers Heat French Supermarket Fridges Up to 50°C by Hijacking Danfoss Controllers