Article
Ransomware Trends & Data Insights: March 2026
Arete Analysis
The threat landscape in March had a much more even distribution of threat groups than has been observed since the first half of 2025. Although Akira, Qilin, Play, and INC remained among the most active groups, Arete observed 21 unique ransomware and extortion groups in March, compared to only 15 in February. Akira and Qilin’s activity also declined from the previous month; in February, the two groups were responsible for almost half of all ransomware incidents, but in March they only comprised a little more than a quarter of all activity. Arete also observed activity from several emerging groups in the past month, including BravoX, NightSpire, Payouts King, and Securotrop.
Figure 1. Activity from the top 5 threat groups in March 2026
Analysts at Arete identified several trends behind the threat actors perpetrating cybercrime activities:
In March, threat actors actively exploited FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall appliances as initial access vectors to compromise enterprise networks. The activity involves the exploitation of recently disclosed security vulnerabilities, including CVE-2025-59718, CVE-2025-59719, and CVE-2026-24858, or weak credentials, allowing attackers to gain administrative access, extract configuration files, and obtain service account credentials. Arete also observed Fortinet device exploitation involving various threat groups, with the Qilin ransomware group notably leveraging Fortinet device exploits.
Phishing campaigns leveraging OAuth redirection and a resurgence of Microsoft Teams–based social engineering were also observed in March. In one campaign, attackers sent emails disguised as Microsoft Teams recordings or Microsoft 365 alerts, redirecting victims through legitimate OAuth endpoints to attacker-controlled pages hosting malicious ZIP payloads. A separate campaign has been ongoing since last year, in which attackers flood users’ inboxes with spam and impersonate IT support personnel to trick victims into initiating remote support sessions via tools like Quick Assist.
Arete recently released its 2025 Annual Crimeware Report. Leveraging data and intelligence collected during ransomware and extortion incident response engagements, this report highlights notable trends and shifts in the threat landscape throughout 2025, including Akira’s unusually high activity levels in the second half of 2025, evolving social engineering techniques, and trends in ransom demands and impacted industries.
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Arete's 2026 Q1 Crimeware Report
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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.
Sources
700+ education and tech websites hijacked in huge ClickFix malware campaign
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Think before you Click(Fix): Analyzing the ClickFix social engineering technique
Ghost CMS Vulnerability Exploited to Infect 700 Sites With ClickFix Malware
Article
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
OPERATION SILENTCANVAS : JPEG BASED MULTISTAGE POWERSHELL INTRUSION
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