Ransomware gangs skip the CEO, head straight for the 40-something IT manager


Turns out the fastest way to get a company to consider paying a ransom isn’t calling the CEO – it’s targeting the 46-year-old IT manager.

That’s according to Zscaler, whose ThreatLabz researchers tracked 351 victims across 334 organizations caught up in a single ransomware campaign over the course of a month.

The data suggests today’s ransomware crews have become oddly specific about their preferred victim profile: nearly two-thirds of victims held manager-level titles or above, the average victim was a 46-year-old Gen Xer, and three-quarters worked in accounting and finance, sales, operations, HR, or marketing. Half worked in the industrial or IT sectors.

Read more…
Source:  The Register News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Hijacking Vertex AI Model Uploads for Cross-Tenant RCE

    June 16, 2026

    Palo Alto Unit42 discovered a vulnerability in the Google Cloud Vertex AI software development kit (SDK) for Python, and responsibly disclosed it to Google. Before Google’s fix, the vulnerability would have allowed an attacker operating entirely from their own Google Cloud project to hijack a victim’s model upload and poison it. By exploiting this flaw ...

  • Attackers used social engineering to access third-party business apps and steal patient information

    June 16, 2026

    Heart monitoring biz iRhythm says thieves made off with patient health information and tried to turn it into a payday. The California-based cardiac monitoring specialist offers customers a wearable device that collects data, then analyzes it to create reports about heart health. The company said it detected unauthorized activity on June 8 and launched an investigation ...

  • Dozens of malicious wallpapers found on Steam Workshop

    June 16, 2026

    Since late 2025, malware has been spreading rapidly through the Steam Workshop, the gaming platform’s built-in service for players to create and share custom content. The attackers are primarily targeting gamers in China and Russia, aiming to hijack their accounts. To pull this off, they are exploiting Wallpaper Engine – a popular live wallpaper app ...

  • Council of Europe hacked in ShinyHunters’ PeopleSoft heist

    June 15, 2026

    ShinyHunters claims to have breached the Council of Europe and stolen more than 297 GB of data after exploiting a zero-day flaw in Oracle PeopleSoft and abusing that hole to hack more than 100 organizations. According to a post on the extortion crew’s data-leak site, the 429,000 pilfered files contain HR and payroll records, payslips, purchase-order ...

  • Public and Private Medical Community Targeted by China-Nexus Threat Actor

    June 15, 2026

    Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has identified a sophisticated campaign attributed to UNC6508, a People’s Republic of China (PRC)-nexus threat actor, targeting institutions in the North American academic, medical, and military research community. While remaining undetected for over a year, the threat actor compromised externally facing web applications, deployed bespoke malware, pivoted to sensitive internal ...

  • Japanese electricity giant apologises after physical drive with data of 10.9 million clients goes missing

    June 12, 2026

    A Japanese energy giant has apologised after losing a physical storage drive containing the data on millions of its clients. Workers for Kyushu Electric Power Co. apparently mislaid the drive, which had been left in an unlocked cabinet, the company explained in an official announcement. The drive allegedly contained information on up to 10.9 million accounts, including customer ...