Ransomware Resilience: Essential Insights from Q2 2025 for Irish Organisations

The ransomware threat landscape continues to present a significant risk in 2025, with cybercriminals showing no signs of slowing their aggressive campaigns. This risk is ably illustrated by the data contained in the latest Brandefense Ireland threat Landscape Report 2025 (free download with registration). The report presents sobering findings that should concern every Irish organisation, from Dublin's financial district to manufacturing hubs in Cork and every SME in between.

The report documents a staggering 1,354 ransomware incidents targeting 21 different industry sectors across 69 active threat groups operating in 83 countries. For Irish businesses, their business partners, and end users, these aren't just numbers but rather a clear signal of the immediate threat from ransomware. A threat that requires urgent attention and proactive action.

Let's look at what the report says. However, you should definitely grab a free copy to read yourself.

The Current Threat Landscape: Fragmentation and Aggression

The report shows that there was a highly divided ransomware ecosystem during the second quarter of 2025. There are ten named attack groups in the data, plus an eleventh "others" category that accounted for 41.7% of the recorded ransomware incidents. The data also shows a broad spread across many small or emerging groups, and several new groups accounted for a large share of attacks. The large "others" category makes attribution harder and emphasises the need for wide-ranging monitoring of attack groups.

Among identifiable actors, Qilin was the most active group, accounting for 12.6% of incidents, followed by Akira at 10.5% and Safepay at 7.4%. These groups have demonstrated remarkable operational resilience, particularly via Qilin's aggressive campaign pace and Akira's reputation for highly targeted intrusions against mid-to-large enterprises.

The report also documents significant disruption within some established groups. LockBit experienced a breach in May 2025 that revealed internal operations, while RansomHub completely collapsed, causing affiliates to migrate to other groups such as DragonForce and Qilin.

Sectoral Vulnerabilities: No Industry is Immune

The data shows that ransomware groups continue to target a wide range of industries. Manufacturing leads at 19% of attacks, followed by business services (15.3%) and construction (13.9%). Other named sectors include retail (12.4%) and the following, all under 10%: legal, real estate, finance, media, education, and hospitality. An "others" category made up 13.9% of attacks, showing that niche parts of the economy are not immune from the attentions of the attackers.

For Irish organisations, this distribution holds particular importance. Ireland's strong manufacturing sector, from pharmaceuticals to technology, targets high-value industries. The ongoing targeting of business services also risks Dublin's thriving financial services sector and the wider professional services network across the island.

Small and medium-sized enterprises faced disproportionate targeting, with groups like Sarcoma and DragonForce exclusively focusing on smaller businesses. This trend is particularly concerning for Ireland's economy, which relies heavily on SMEs across various sectors.

Geographic Concentrations and Regional Dynamics

Geographically, the United States remained the primary target, accounting for 45.9% of all incidents. However, European nations featured prominently, with Germany (5.2%), the United Kingdom (3.5%), Italy (3.1%), and Spain (3.0%) all experiencing significant attack volumes. For Irish organisations, the closeness to these highly targeted markets and shared digital infrastructure increases the risk. Irish businesses will be as tempting a target as those in other EU states.

The EMEA region saw a dramatic 204% rise in ransomware activity compared to Q1 2025, indicating increasing adversary interest from the ransomware criminals.

Check Your Organisation's Risk Exposure

Understanding the threat landscape is the first step, but knowing your specific vulnerabilities is critical. Before diving into the evolving tactics ransomware groups employ, take a moment to assess your organisation's current exposure.

Threat.Watch is a free service that allows you to quickly check your domain health, identify exposed credentials or breached accounts, and detect related dark web content. In seconds, you can discover if your organisation's data has been compromised, giving you the actionable intelligence needed to respond before ransomware attackers exploit these vulnerabilities.

Evolving Tactics: Double Extortion and Data Auctions

Ransomware groups have refined their methods beyond simple encryption, increasingly employing double and triple extortion tactics. Groups like INC Ransom and Hunters International (before its voluntary shutdown in July 2025) demonstrated sophisticated approaches, publishing "proof packs" with sensitive data to highlight infiltration capabilities and create urgency.

The report highlights multiple known vulnerabilities and their associated CVE numbers that the ransomware groups frequently use to breach security.
These vulnerabilities highlight the importance of aggressive patch management and real-time vulnerability monitoring for Irish organisations. Activities for which there are solutions available.

Building Defensive Resilience: Practical Recommendations

Based on the report's findings, Brandefense analysts recommend several critical steps for Irish organisations:

1. Strengthen Cybersecurity Infrastructure - Given ransomware groups' frequent exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities, organisations should develop and deploy monitoring and patch management processes. IT administrators should apply system updates promptly, and vulnerability management should address potential security gaps.
2. Focus on SME Protection - Small and medium-sized enterprises require special attention, as attackers see them as more vulnerable than larger companies. These businesses need increased cybersecurity investment, strong authentication systems, and ongoing security gap monitoring. Organisations should implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) and other essential security measures.
3. Sector-Specific Strategies - Manufacturing, business services, and construction companies, which are economic pillars in Ireland, should update cybersecurity training programmes that inform employees about social engineering tactics. Enhancing backup processes to safeguard them from ransomware and updating disaster recovery plans are vital for preventing catastrophic operational disruptions.
4. Regional Coordination - The sharp rise in EMEA targeting requires tailored threat awareness by region and enhanced international cooperation in detection, defence, and incident response efforts. Irish organisations should access and use shared threat intelligence and engage in sector-specific information sharing initiatives.
5. Intelligence-Driven Defence - The fragmented threat landscape demands adaptable defence strategies and intelligence-led threat detection. Organisations should develop threat intelligence capabilities and early warning systems to respond promptly and effectively to emerging threats.

The Path Forward: Proactive Defence in an Evolving Landscape

The ransomware landscape presented in the report shows that although some groups might succumb to law enforcement action or internal pressures, the overall threat remains substantial and ongoing. The appearance of new groups, changes in tactics, and broader geographic targeting all indicate a threat environment that requires constant vigilance and adaptation by defenders.

For Irish organisations, the report acts as both a warning and a guide. The data clearly indicates that no sector is exempt, no organisation is too small to be targeted, and no geographical location is safe from the ransomware threat.

The key to defence is in adopting a proactive, intelligence-led approach to cybersecurity. This involves investing in continuous monitoring, maintaining strong patch management processes, implementing comprehensive air-gapped backups, tried and tested recovery strategies, and fostering a security-aware culture throughout the organisation.

As ransomware groups become more agile and decentralised, Irish defenders must respond with equal flexibility by investing in intelligence-led detection, promoting cross-EU collaboration, and adopting proactive resilience strategies. The stakes of failure are very high, and the threats too sophisticated, for anything less than a comprehensive, active approach to ransomware defence.

The question is not whether attackers will target your organisation, but whether you'll be ready when the inevitable happens. The insights from Brandefense's Q2 2025 report provide intelligence needed to prepare.

Find Out More

Brandefense offers comprehensive digital risk protection through four core modules to defend brand reputation from ransomware and other cyber threats.

• Brand Protection monitors the dark web, detects phishing campaigns, identifies compromised devices, and tracks data leaks.
• Cyber Threat Intelligence provides strategic, tactical, and operational intelligence with detailed threat reports.
• 3rd Party Risk Management evaluates vendor risks and offers secure monitoring tools.
• Fraud Monitoring maintains a global database of stolen credit cards and safeguards against fraudulent activities conducted under client names.

These services and other Brandefense solutions enable continuous real-time monitoring across the open web and dark web environments, minimising false positives through machine learning and analyst expertise, while allowing integration with existing security infrastructure. They deliver the threat intelligence your business needs to assess threats and defend against attacks that use information that has leaked from your organisation.

To find out more about how you can incorporate Brandefense tools and solutions into the cybersecurity and brand protection for your clients in Ireland, contact Renaissance.