Europe Sees Increase in Ransomware, Extortion Attacks

European organisations are facing an escalating cyber threat, with attacks on ransomware and extortion rising as groups operate faster than before. The latest CrowdStrike study found that Europe accounts for nearly 22% of global ransomware and extortion victims, with the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain among the most targeted nations.

It also notes that Europe-based organisations saw a nearly 13% year‑over‑year rise in dedicated leak site entries, while groups such as Scattered Spider reduced their time to deployment to just 24 hours.

The report identifies manufacturing, professional services, technology, industrial and engineering, and retail as the most targeted sectors, and names several prolific ransomware gangs, including Akira, LockBit, RansomHub, INC, Lynx, and Sinobi, as particularly active in the region since January 2024 amid big‑game hunting attacks. CrowdStrike also highlights 17 attacks of this kind since January 2024, including the January 2025 kidnapping of the Ledger co‑founder in France.

The researchers offer mitigation steps such as adopting agentic AI to scale security operations, securing the identity ecosystem, closing cross‑domain visibility gaps, and treating the cloud as core infrastructure.