InfoSecurity Magazine reports:
Security researchers observed a 30% annual increase in ransomware victims listed on extortion sites last year, with AI helping to lower the barrier to entry for new threat groups.
Searchlight Cyber’s new report, Ransomware’s Record Year: Tracking a Volatile Landscape in H2 2025, tracked 7458 victims on dark web leak sites in 2025.
These numbers were split virtually 50:50 between the first and second half of the year. To put the annual growth figure in perspective, victim numbers increased by just 13% between 2023 and 2024.
At the same time, the number of ransomware groups hit a new high of 124, with 73 new groups identified in 2025.
But were these really ransomware attacks victims, or were many — or even most — hacks with exfiltration without any encryption? And how many were repackaged older incidents? Either way, there were more victims being disclosed.
Read more at InfoSecurity Magazine.
