State of Ransomware: August 2026
Published 1 September 2026 · ThreatVectr Intelligence
Ransomware groups claimed 1,120 attacks on organisations worldwide in August 2026, up 13% on the previous month's 995. 83 distinct groups posted at least one victim during the month, across 80 countries. The busiest single day was 5 August, with 99 victims listed.
Qilin was the most active operation of the month, claiming 165 victims — 15% of all listings. The Gentlemen (116) and Cl0p (88) followed. 11 groups appeared for the first time, including Storm, Emperador, Panzer, Metaencryptor.
Manufacturing bore the heaviest targeting, with 173 claimed victims, ahead of Technology (141) and Professional Services (127). By geography, United States accounted for 375 claims — 33% of the month — with Germany (62) and Italy (50) next.
Claims per day — August 2026
Most active groups
- 1Qilin116515%
- 2The Gentlemen111610%
- 3Cl0p60888%
- 4DirewolfNew434%
- 5INC Ransom·434%
- 6StormNew414%
- 7Krybit4363%
- 8Akira2323%
- 9Settra7272%
- 10Orova20262%
First seen this month:Storm, Emperador, Panzer, Metaencryptor, Eclipse, Iah6477, Barracuda, Dysphor1a and 3 more
Most-targeted sectors
- 1Manufacturing173
- 2Technology141
- 3Professional Services127
- 4Healthcare115
- 5Other108
- 6Retail & E-Commerce66
- 7Financial Services65
- 8Transportation40
- 9Agriculture and Food Production36
- 10Energy & Utilities30
Most-affected countries
- 1United States375
- 2Germany62
- 3Italy50
- 4United Kingdom49
- 5Brazil28
- 6Canada26
- 7France26
- 8Mexico23
- 9Australia19
- 10India19
Every figure in this report counts a claim posted to a criminal leak site, observed via the monitoring service ransomware.live. A listing is an extortion tactic, not a confirmed breach: some claims are exaggerated, some are duplicates under new branding, and a few are outright false. Companies named in listings have not necessarily confirmed any incident, and ThreatVectr does not publish victim names from this dataset.
Cite this report
This report is free to cite and reproduce with attribution. Suggested citation:
ThreatVectr, “State of Ransomware: August 2026”, https://threatvectr.com/ransomware-tracker/reports/august-2026
Journalists and researchers: for questions about the data or methodology, contact the newsdesk.
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