Zscaler’s ThreatLabz has released its 2023 Ransomware Report, which analyzes ransomware trends and impacts. Of special note this year is the continued sophistication of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) and the rise of encryptionless extortion.

While RaaS is not a concept that was developed in 2023, the maturity and complexity of attacks seen this year are a definite result of the sophistication of a market where ransomware toolmakers can focus on improving their product by selling to third parties who conduct the actual attacks. This has led to an explosion of new actors. Meanwhile, encryptionless extortion is a more recent change, as some threat actors are shifting away from encrypting networks and purely focusing on exfiltrating data from organizations’ networks to extort a ransom. This method creates less business disruption and publicity for the target, which could improve the criminal’s ability to persuade them to pay instead of recover. Read more at IT Brief Australia.