Ransomware remains top threat to large and midsized businesses, most active groups are increasingly leveraging AI for low-effort, high-reward campaigns
Acronis, a global leader in cybersecurity and data protection, today released the findings of the Acronis Cyberthreats Report H1 2025, detailing the most popular threat vectors, active threat groups, and targeted industries in the first half of 2025. Ransomware remains the major threat for large and medium-sized businesses, with new groups increasingly leveraging AI to automate their activities – phishing accounted for 25% of all attacks and 52% of attacks targeting MSPs, a 22% increase compared to H1 2024. India emerged as the most targeted country worldwide, with 12.4% of monitored endpoints affected — highlighting the nation’s growing vulnerability to sophisticated threats such as AI-powered phishing and impersonation attacks.
The biannual report covers the global threat landscape as encountered by the Acronis Threat Research Unit (TRU) and Acronis sensors on Windows endpoints from January through June 2025. Based on signals from over 1,000,000 unique endpoints distributed around the world, the report also incorporates statistics focused on threats targeting Windows operating systems, given their prevalence as compared to macOS and Linux.
“While the endgame for cybercriminals is still ransomware, how they get there is changing,” said Gerald Beuchelt, CISO at Acronis. “Even the least sophisticated attackers today have access to advanced AI capabilities, generating social engineering attacks and automating their activities with minimal effort. The result is that MSPs, manufacturers, ISPs, and others are constantly exposed to sophisticated attacks, including increasingly advanced deepfakes, and all it takes is one mistake to put the organizations’ entire future at risk. To survive in this threat landscape and avoid damaging ransomware payloads, a holistic cyber protection strategy that incorporates advanced detection, response and recovery capabilities is essential.”
Key Findings of the Acronis Cyberthreats Report H1 2025 include:
- Ransomware is Still Top-Dog: The number of publicly known ransomware victims increased nearly 70% over the measured time period, as compared to both 2023 and 2024. Cl0p, Akira, and Qlin are the most active ransomware gangs.
- AI Powering Surge in Social Engineering: Ransomware gangs are increasingly utilizing AI, and this is reflected in their chosen threat vectors – social engineering and BEC attacks increased from 20% to 25.6% in January 2025 through May 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, likely due to the growth in AI use for crafting convincing impersonations. Malware was discovered in 1.47% of Microsoft 365 email backups.
- MSPs Bombarded by Phishing and BEC Attacks: While the overall number of attacks targeting MSPs fell over the measured time period, the nature of attacks changed significantly; phishing accounted for 52% of all attacks targeting MSPs as compared to 30% in 2024, while Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) attacks all but vanished
- Not All Phishing Attacks are Created Equal: While phishing is the weapon of choice for attackers, they are increasingly focusing on collaboration apps, eschewing simple BEC campaigns. Almost 25% of the attacks in collaboration apps leveraged AI-generated deepfakes or automated exploits.
- Manufacturers in the Crosshairs: Manufacturing was ransomware gangs’ most targeted industry, representing 15% of all recorded cases in Q1 2025. Retail, food and drink (12%) and telcos and media (10%) were also popular targets.
Implications for Indian Industries
Collaboration applications, widely used across Indian enterprises, have become a growing attack vector. Phishing incidents on platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Slack surged from 9% to 30.5% in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, advanced email threats — including payload-less and spoofed attacks — rose sharply from 9% to 24.5%, underscoring the urgent need for adaptive, AI-informed security systems.
“India’s digital economy is expanding rapidly, but with that growth comes an expanded attack surface. As threat actors evolve, Indian enterprises — especially in manufacturing and infrastructure — must implement AI-aware cybersecurity frameworks to stay ahead,” said Rajesh Chhabra, General Manager, India & South Asia at Acronis. “Given the sector’s strategic importance under the Make in India initiative, ransomware attacks targeting manufacturing pose a significant risk to the country’s economic growth and industrial resilience. These figures paint a sobering picture. AI is empowering cybercriminals to operate at scale and with higher precision. Enterprises must transition from reactive to behavior-based security models.”
Attackers are also increasingly compromising Managed Service Providers (MSPs) by exploiting Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tools. TeamViewer emerged as the most targeted, with 4.56% of global Acronis customers still using unpatched versions. India’s expanding IT services sector must prioritize regular patching and vigilant monitoring of such platforms to reduce risk.
Cybercriminal Tactics and the Misuse of AI
The most observed attack technique was MITRE ATT&CK T1055.001 (Process Injection), typically via DLL injection to evade detection. PowerShell was widely used to execute obfuscated scripts and deploy stealth malware. To counter these threats, organizations should enforce strict script control policies, deploy behavior-based Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions, and conduct regular endpoint activity audits.
Following the takedown of several black-market AI services, attackers are increasingly turning to legitimate AI tools to automate phishing, impersonation, and reconnaissance. While these tools are not yet integrated across the full attack lifecycle, this marks a shift toward more scalable and precise threat generation.
Recommendations for Enterprises
Acronis advises businesses and MSPs to adopt a proactive, multi-layered defense strategy. This includes:
- Deploy behavior-based threat detection and EDR solutions.
- Regularly audit and update third-party applications, particularly RMM platforms.
- Implement comprehensive cloud and email security strategies.
- Conduct ongoing employee education on social engineering and phishing techniques.
