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:
- Google patches 129 Android security flaws — including a potentially dangerous Qualcomm zero-day
March 3, 2026
Google has released a new security update which fixed 129 vulnerabilities in the Android ecosystem, including 10 critical-severity bugs, and one high-severity issue apparently being exploited in the wild. In a security advisory, Google said that it fixed a buffer over-read vulnerability in the Graphics component (an open-source Qualcomm module). The bug, tracked as CVE-2026-21385, was ...
- Coruna: The Mysterious Journey of a Powerful iOS Exploit Kit
March 3, 2026
Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) has identified a new and powerful exploit kit targeting Apple iPhone models running iOS version 13.0 (released in September 2019) up to version 17.2.1 (released in December 2023). The exploit kit, named “Coruna” by its developers, contained five full iOS exploit chains and a total of 23 exploits. The core technical ...
- Microsoft OAuth scams abuse redirects for malware delivery
March 3, 2026
Microsoft has warned organizations about ongoing OAuth abuse scams that use phishing emails and URL redirects to infect victims’ machines with malware and take over their devices. The phishing expedition targets government and public-sector organizations, according to a Monday report from Redmond’s security researchers. And while Microsoft Entra disabled the malicious OAuth applications, Microsoft’s infosec squad ...
- Hacktivists may have just cracked open ICE and exposed over 6,000 companies working with the DHS
March 3, 2026
A hacktivist group has claimed to have broken into systems belonging to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and exposed sensitive files online. The group, with the self-awarded name “The Department of Peace”, stole data from the Office of Industry Partnership that contained contracts between DHS, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and over 6,000 private ...
- Hacked traffic cams and hijacked TVs: How cyber operations supported the war against Iran
March 3, 2026
On Saturday, U.S. and Israeli jets began a bombing campaign against Iran, killing its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several senior government officials. The attacks also hit military and civilian targets all across the country, including a girls’ school, where at least 168 children and adults were killed. After a few days of conflict, multiple reports, ...
- Chrome flaw let extensions hijack Gemini’s camera, mic, and file access
March 3, 2026
Chrome’s Gemini “Live in Chrome” panel (Gemini’s embedded, agent-style assistant mode within Chrome) had a high‑severity vulnerability tracked as CVE‑2026‑0628. The flaw let a low‑privilege extension inject code into the Gemini side panel and inherit its powerful capabilities, including local file access, screenshots, and camera/microphone control. The vulnerability was patched in a January update. But the ...