{"id":212315,"date":"2026-02-11T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/extortion-attacks-on-the-rise-as-hackers-prioritize-supply-chain-weaknesses\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:30:09","slug":"extortion-attacks-on-the-rise-as-hackers-prioritize-supply-chain-weaknesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/11\/extortion-attacks-on-the-rise-as-hackers-prioritize-supply-chain-weaknesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Extortion attacks on the rise as hackers prioritize supply-chain weaknesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/ransomware-extortion-intel-471\/811954\/\">Extortion attacks on the rise as hackers prioritize supply-chain weaknesses<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/ransomware-extortion-intel-471\/811954\/\">https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/ransomware-extortion-intel-471\/811954\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-11 11:27:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.cybersecuritydive.com\">www.cybersecuritydive.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>        Listen to the article<br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-to-speech__button__audio-length\">4 min<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.<\/p>\n<h3><span><span><span><strong><span><span>Dive Brief:<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span><span><span><span><span><span>Ransomware actors extorted consumer and industrial products vendors, consulting firms and manufacturing companies more than any other organizations in 2025, the security firm <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>Intel 471 said in a report<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span> published on Tuesday.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><span><span><span><span><span>The U.S. was, by far, the most affected country, accounting for more than half of all extortion victims.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><span><span><span><span><span>Cyber threat actors exploited more than 40% of the 520 vulnerabilities disclosed in 2025, according to Intel 471, which predicted that AI would further reduce the time needed to exploit these vulnerabilities in 2026.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span><span><span><strong><span><span>Dive Insight:<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>The number of extortion-related cyberattacks increased by roughly 63% in 2025 to 6,800, according to Intel 471\u2019s report, which is based on data from the company\u2019s analysis of dark-web forums. The previous year saw the \u201crapid ascension\u201d of the Qilin ransomware gang, Intel 471 said, although <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>the Sp1d3r Hunters alliance<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span> (composed of Scattered Spider, LAPSUS$ and ShinyHunters hackers) and the Cl0p gang grabbed most of the headlines with <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>high-profile operations<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Businesses should be particularly alert for supply-chain attacks leveraging vulnerabilities in their contractors\u2019 products, the report warned. By <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>compromising a managed service provider<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span> or software vendor to access its customers\u2019 systems, a supply-chain attack \u201cleverages established trust, allowing attackers to bypass robust defenses and achieve a much greater impact with significantly less effort,\u201d Intel 471 researchers wrote.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span><span><span><span><span>Cleo and Salesloft <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span><span>experienced major breaches<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><span><span><span><span><span><span> that led to significant downstream intrusions in 2025, with researchers attributing the former campaign to Cl0p and noting the potential involvement of Sp1d3r Hunters in the latter&#8230;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/ransomware-extortion-intel-471\/811954\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Extortion attacks on the rise as hackers prioritize supply-chain weaknesses https:\/\/www.cybersecuritydive.com\/news\/ransomware-extortion-intel-471\/811954\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-11 11:27:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/imgproxy.divecdn.com\/wrG0ICF19Fyv1yDDaYg9ZcmjAF_XxFdvGfL8yAwMVjw\/g:ce\/rs:fit:770:435\/Z3M6Ly9kaXZlc2l0ZS1zdG9yYWdlL2RpdmVpbWFnZS9HZXR0eUltYWdlcy0xMjUxNzI2OTExLmpwZw==.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[20,57],"class_list":["post-212315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212317,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212315\/revisions\/212317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}