Staying Ahead of Threat Actors: Flashpoint’s 2025 Ransomware Survival Guide

Ransomware continues to be one of the most pressing cybersecurity challenges facing organizations today. In 2024 alone, Flashpoint identified over 4,700 ransomware attacks, impacting businesses across all sectors, underscoring the magnitude of this threat. For over a decade, ransomware attacks have dominated news headlines resulting in reputational losses on top of, and amplifying, financial losses. 

Despite significant advances in cybersecurity safeguards, ransomware continues to thrive and evolve, becoming increasingly intertwined with a thriving underground economy that provides threat actors with easy access to sophisticated tools and infrastructure.

Flashpoint’s 2025 Ransomware Survival Guide equips CTI professionals, threat hunters, and security leaders with the actionable knowledge and insights they need to effectively anticipate, prevent, and respond to ransomware attacks. Using this ebook, readers can strengthen their defenses and improve their incident response capabilities by:

• Understanding the interconnected nature of ransomware and its stages: Gain insights into how seemingly unrelated cyber threats such as infostealers and vulnerabilities impact ransomware defense across its many stages.
  
• Identify how attackers perform reconnaissance and plan ransomware attacks:
  Learn exactly how threat actors hone in on potential victims and the kinds of data they seek. Using this information, security teams can pinpoint the gaps within their own cybersecurity program and work to address them.
  
• Develop and implement incident response plans: Get guidance on how to create a playbook that establishes clear roles and responsibilities, communication protocols, and escalation procedures. Learn how Flashpoint helps organizations engage with threat actors, negotiate ransom demands, and recover data.

Ransomware-as-a-Service

What makes ransomware so hard to defend against? Looking at the cyber threat landscape, Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has created a force-multiplier effect, further driving the rise of attacks as well as its ease of use. It has greatly lowered the barrier to entry, allowing unsophisticated attackers to leverage these complex tools as long as they can afford an illicit subscription. 

Our latest ebook details how RaaS groups are responsible for the vast majority of reported ransomware attacks, with LockBit being the most prolific, followed by RansomHub and Play. Together, these groups accounted for 32% of 2024’s reported ransomware attacks.

Understanding the Stages of Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is rarely an isolated incident. They are often part of a complex, multi-stage operation that weaves together various tactics, tools, and procedures—such as phishing, infostealers, and vulnerability exploits. Therefore, to truly understand and defend against ransomware, organizations need to view it as a dynamic process that unfolds over time.

Download the 2025 Ransomware Survival Guide for an understanding of each stage, with insights and actionable strategies pertaining to:

1. Recon, Planning, and Gaining Access: Attackers research targets, often with the help of specialized brokers who provide additional expertise or tools.
2. Lateral Movement and Privilege Escalation: Once inside, they move laterally, stealing credentials to expand their control and locate valuable data.
3. Encryption and Impact: Attackers deploy payloads to encrypt critical data and systems, effectively holding the victim hostage.
4. Extortion and Negotiation: Attackers demand payment in exchange for a decryption key or to prevent the release of stolen data, maximizing pressure on the victim.
5. Recovery and Mitigation: Security teams work to recover encrypted data, restore systems, and implementing measures to prevent future attacks.

Protecting Organizations Across the Ransomware Attack Lifecycle

Flashpoint offers a holistic approach to ransomware defense, both in its prevention and response, by combining proactive threat intelligence, organizational readiness, and real-time incident response services. Using Flashpoint, security teams are equipped with the intelligence they need to prevent ransomware attacks, respond swiftly during incidents, and ensure quick recovery with minimal disruption.

Download the 2025 Ransomware Survival Guide to learn how Flashpoint helps organizations throughout every stage of the ransomware process.