The average e-crime breakout time - the period between initial access and lateral movement onto another system - dropped to 29 minutes, a 65% increase in speed from 2024. One such intrusion undertaken by Luna Moth targeting a law firm moved from initial access to data exfiltration in four minutes.
In its annual Red Report, a body of research that analyzes real-world attacker techniques using large-scale attack simulation data, Picus Labs warns cybersecurity professionals that threat actors are rapidly shifting away from ransomware encryption to parasitic "sleeperware" extortion as their means to loot organizations for millions of dollars per attack. Released today and now in its sixth year, the 278-page Red Report gets its name from Picus-organized cybersecurity exercises that take the perspective of the attacker's team, otherwise known as the "red team."
