For awareness Low Awareness
Ransomware victims up 80% in third quarter, manufacturing hit hardest
Industrial Cybermanufacturing
What happened. Bridewell recorded 2,889 publicly disclosed ransomware victims across 111 groups in the third quarter of 2026, up 80% on a year earlier. Qilin was the most active group. Manufacturing made up 16.4% of victims.
Who is affected. Manufacturing was the hardest-hit sector at 16.4% of victims. The U.S. was the most targeted country at 34.7%. Ransomware affected 121 countries and 13 sectors.
What to do. Brief your team on the rise in ransomware against manufacturing and check that your backups, network separation and incident response plans are current.
When to act. For awareness: background reading, nothing to schedule
Editor's reading
ForOT security leadleadership
- Purdue level
- L4
Why: The report reports ransomware victim postings by sector, which mostly reflect business IT systems, so the story is placed at enterprise IT (L4).
Inferred from the facts above, not stated by the source. Check it against your own site before acting.
Source: Industrial Cyber (opens industrialcyber.co)
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