State of Ransomware: May 2026
Published 1 June 2026 · ThreatVectr Intelligence
Ransomware groups claimed 759 attacks on organisations worldwide in May 2026, down 5% on the previous month's 803. 64 distinct groups posted at least one victim during the month, across 76 countries. The busiest single day was 1 May, with 53 victims listed.
Qilin was the most active operation of the month, claiming 111 victims — 15% of all listings. The Gentlemen (77) and DragonForce (58) followed. 6 groups appeared for the first time, including DeadLock, Fulcrumsec, Icarus, Doommageddon.
Business Services bore the heaviest targeting, with 148 claimed victims, ahead of Manufacturing (95) and Technology (68). By geography, United States accounted for 283 claims — 37% of the month — with United Kingdom (47) and Germany (40) next.
Claims per day — May 2026
Most active groups
- 1Qilin·11115%
- 2The Gentlemen·7710%
- 3DragonForce·588%
- 4Akira2314%
- 5INC Ransom3294%
- 6LockBit1284%
- 7NightSpire3253%
- 8Nova17253%
- 9SafePay10243%
- 10FulcrumsecNew233%
First seen this month:DeadLock, Fulcrumsec, Icarus, Doommageddon, 0day syndicate, Triple x
Most-targeted sectors
- 1Business Services148
- 2Manufacturing95
- 3Technology68
- 4Healthcare60
- 5Consumer Services51
- 6Agriculture and Food Production39
- 7Financial Services35
- 8Transportation/Logistics32
- 9Construction29
- 10Education29
Most-affected countries
- 1United States283
- 2United Kingdom47
- 3Germany40
- 4Canada26
- 5Spain23
- 6Italy22
- 7Australia18
- 8Japan16
- 9Mexico15
- 10France14
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: May 2026”, https://threatvectr.com/ransomware-tracker/reports/may-2026
Journalists and researchers: for questions about the data or methodology, contact the newsdesk.
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