Ransomware Statistics & Trends: Key Facts for 2026

Ransomware remains one of the most disruptive and costly cyber threats facing organizations worldwide. This guide pulls together the most important, consistently reported ransomware statistics and trends to give you an at-a-glance picture of the threat. Because exact figures shift year to year and vary by source, we focus on the durable findings that major industry reports consistently show, and we point you to the primary sources — like Verizon's Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report, and ENISA's Threat Landscape — to check the latest precise numbers.

A note on figures: ransomware statistics differ between reports depending on methodology and scope, and they change every year. Treat the numbers below as well-established ranges and patterns rather than fixed values, and consult the linked reports for current, exact data.

Prevalence: how common ransomware is

• Ransomware is involved in a substantial share of breaches. Verizon's DBIR has consistently found ransomware to be among the most common attack types in confirmed breaches, and its share has trended upward over recent years.
• It affects every sector and size of organization. While large enterprises make headlines, small and mid-sized organizations are frequently hit because they often have weaker defenses.
• It's a leading concern in threat landscapes. ENISA and other bodies routinely rank ransomware among the top cyber threats year after year.

Cost: the financial impact

• The total cost far exceeds the ransom. The biggest costs are usually downtime, recovery, lost productivity, and reputational damage — not the ransom payment itself.
• Breach costs run into the millions. IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report has placed the global average cost of a data breach in the multi-million-dollar range in recent years, with ransomware-related breaches often among the more expensive.
• Downtime is the hidden killer. Organizations frequently face days to weeks of disruption while recovering, and that operational downtime typically dwarfs the ransom in cost.

The shift to double and data extortion

• Double extortion is now standard. Most major ransomware groups steal data before encrypting it, threatening to leak it — so even organizations with good backups face pressure. We cover this in our ransomware guide.
• Some groups skip encryption entirely. A growing trend is pure data extortion, where attackers steal data and threaten to publish it without bothering to encrypt — faster and still effective.
• Leak sites are routine. Ransomware groups operate public "leak sites" naming victims who don't pay, adding reputational pressure.

Most-targeted sectors

While no sector is immune, reporting consistently shows certain industries hit hardest:

• Healthcare — high-value data and life-critical operations make hospitals frequent, high-pressure targets.
• Manufacturing — downtime is extremely costly, increasing pressure to pay, and OT exposure adds risk (see OT/ICS threat intelligence).
• Government, education, and financial services — repeatedly among the most affected, due to sensitive data and essential services.

RaaS and the criminal supply chain

• RaaS drives the volume. The ransomware-as-a-service model has industrialized ransomware, letting low-skill affiliates launch sophisticated attacks and fueling the steady growth in incidents.
• Initial access brokers feed the pipeline. Many ransomware attacks begin with access bought from initial access brokers, often sourced from infostealer logs.
• Groups rebrand to evade pressure. When law enforcement disrupts a brand, the people and model persist under new names, which is why takedowns slow but rarely stop the threat.

Payment and recovery trends

• Paying is discouraged and unreliable. Authorities generally advise against paying; it funds further crime, may carry legal risk, and doesn't guarantee full recovery — decryptors are often slow or incomplete.
• A meaningful share of victims decline to pay, increasingly relying on tested backups and incident response — though double extortion complicates that calculus.
• Recovery takes time. Even when data is recovered, fully restoring operations commonly takes weeks, underscoring the value of preparation.

How the ransomware threat is evolving

Beyond the headline numbers, several trends consistently show up across recent reporting and shape where ransomware is heading:

• From encryption to pure extortion. More groups skip encryption entirely and simply steal and threaten to leak data — it's faster and sidesteps the need for reliable decryptors.
• Faster attacks. The time from initial access to ransomware deployment has compressed, in part because attackers buy ready-made access from brokers rather than breaching from scratch.
• Identity-driven intrusions. Stolen credentials and session tokens — often from infostealers — have become a leading entry point, frequently bypassing MFA.
• Targeting of essential services. Attacks on healthcare, utilities, and critical infrastructure continue, where operational pressure raises the odds of payment.
• Resilient, rebranding groups. Law-enforcement takedowns disrupt brands but rarely the underlying people and infrastructure, so groups reconstitute under new names.

The throughline is that ransomware keeps professionalizing and accelerating — which makes prevention speed (fast patching, strong identity controls) matter more every year.

What the statistics tell defenders

The consistent message across the data is that ransomware is common, costly, and increasingly built around data extortion and the RaaS supply chain. The good news is that the same reports repeatedly point to a handful of high-impact defenses: phishing-resistant MFA, prompt patching (especially of internet-facing systems and KEV-listed vulnerabilities), tested offline backups, behavioral detection, network segmentation, and a rehearsed incident response plan. The statistics describe a serious threat — but a largely preventable one.

Where threat intelligence fits

Aggregate statistics describe the landscape; threat intelligence tells you what's happening now and to your sector — which groups are active, how they're getting in, and which vulnerabilities they're exploiting. Combining the big-picture trends here with real-time intelligence is how organizations turn awareness into prioritized, effective defense. Our live threat intelligence feed surfaces breaking ransomware reporting from dozens of authoritative sources.

The bottom line

Ransomware statistics consistently show a threat that is common across all sectors and sizes, costly well beyond the ransom itself, increasingly centered on data extortion, and powered by the RaaS supply chain. Healthcare, manufacturing, government, and education are repeatedly among the hardest hit. The encouraging counterpoint is that the most-cited defenses — MFA, patching, backups, segmentation, and tested response — reliably reduce the risk. For exact, current figures, consult reports like the Verizon DBIR and IBM's Cost of a Data Breach, and track live activity on our threat intelligence feed.