Ransomware gap meets cloud focus
A Halcyon survey found a widening 'ransomware gap' as AI‑powered attacks outpace enterprise defenses, while IBM X‑Force warns attackers are shifting to cloud application layers and misconfigurations. The twin signals raise the bar for backup immutability, identity hygiene, and runtime cloud detection. (prnewswire.com) (ibm.com)
Halcyon’s survey of 100 CISOs and senior security executives found 99% of leaders say they can detect ransomware, yet 49% of victims reported detecting their last attack too late to prevent significant damage. (prnewswire.com) (prnewswire.com) Seventy‑four percent of respondents said AI has increased their organization’s exposure to ransomware, 98% still rely on EDR for defense but only 25% actually trust it against today’s ransomware variants. (prnewswire.com) (prnewswire.com) Halcyon reported 89% of organizations experienced some operational impact from ransomware in recent incidents, with 49% seeing moderate to significant disruption, and 97% of leaders being questioned about ransomware readiness by their boards. (prnewswire.com) (prnewswire.com) IBM X‑Force found a 44% increase in attacks that began with exploitation of public‑facing applications in 2025 and identified vulnerability exploitation as the causative factor in 40% of observed incidents. (ibm.com) (newsroom.ibm.com) X‑Force reported a 49% year‑over‑year surge in active ransomware and extortion groups in 2025 and said large supply‑chain and third‑party compromises have risen nearly fourfold since 2020. (ibm.com) (newsroom.ibm.com) IBM’s cloud threat analysis shows phishing accounted for 33% of cloud‑related incidents over two years, business‑email‑compromise 39%, and compromised cloud credentials were the second most common initial access vector at 28%, with attackers exploiting missing authentication controls and misconfigurations. (ibm.com) (ibm.com)
