Mitigating the Risk of Triple-Extortion Ransomware Attacks

Over the last decade, the threat of ransomware has surged across businesses, healthcare providers, school districts, government agencies, and other critical institutions. In 2015, global damages from ransomware attacks were estimated at $325 million. In 2025, this figure is projected to reach $57 billion, and by 2031, $276 billion. The true cost of ransomware, however, cannot be quantified only financially, especially when, for example, attacks on hospitals directly hinder life-saving care.

Ransomware’s existence is nothing new; threat actors have used malware in various forms with the intent to extort for decades. But recently, the increased ubiquity and pseudonymous nature of crypto assets have fueled ransomware’s prevalence, and ransomware has become more insidious. What began as simple encryption of files for ransom evolved into threats of public release and multifaceted pressure campaigns with high stakes and potentially devastating results.

By understanding how ransomware – particularly triple-extortion ransomware – compromises fundamental components of security, including confidentiality, integrity, and availability, organizations can take proactive, defensive steps to strengthen their cyber resilience.

The confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) triad is a cornerstone of information security. These three principles define the objectives of a secure system. Confidentiality protects data from unauthorized access or disclosure. Integrity maintains the accuracy and consistency of data throughout its life cycle and keeps it from being altered, corrupted, or deleted without proper authorization. Availability keeps information and systems accessible and functional when needed, even during disruptions or attacks.

• Availability: Disrupting access to systems and data

  In its earliest widespread form, ransomware focused primarily on availability. By encrypting files or locking users out of critical systems, attackers could halt operations until a ransom was paid. Even without additional tactics, this denial of access was enough to disrupt businesses, delay services, and cause significant financial loss. As ransomware matured, encryption-based attacks became more sophisticated and made recovery without payment difficult or impossible.

  In large part, ransomware rose to prominence as a widespread threat with the introduction of CryptoLocker. While used in a variety of campaigns, it spread primarily through phishing emails masquerading as shipment tracking notices from legitimate vendors. CryptoLocker’s function was simple – single extortion, or payment in exchange for decrypting the files. As CryptoLocker began to spread, clones of the malware appeared and helped propel ransomware into one of the core tactics of organized cybercriminals.

• Confidentiality: Threatening to leak sensitive data

  Around 2019, double-extortion ransomware added a direct threat to confidentiality. Attackers encrypted files, exfiltrated sensitive data, and threatened to publish it if the ransom was unpaid. This evolution meant organizations faced reputational harm, regulatory penalties, and loss of customer trust, even if they could restore systems from backups. By holding both access to and privacy of data hostage, attackers gained greater leverage in negotiations.

  Double-extortion ransomware campaigns go beyond encrypting files and demanding a ransom. They also exfiltrate the data and threaten the victim with the leak of the stolen data if a ransom is not paid. An infamous variant of double-extortion ransomware is Maze, which was behind the 2020 ransomware attack on IT services provider Cognizant, estimated to have cost the company losses in the range of $50 million to $70 million.

  Double-extortion attacks have become the standard for most modern ransomware attacks. Attackers will generally use social engineering tactics to deliver a malicious payload, and then once the ransomware is activated, use an exfiltration tool to obtain a copy of the data and deliver it to their own servers. Threat actors can use open-source cloud storage management tools to exfiltrate data, but they are increasingly using remote system administration tools to achieve much more than just data exfiltration.

• Integrity: Eroding trust in data and operations

  A third element of triple-extortion ransomware is an attack on integrity. By altering, corrupting, or deleting data, attackers undermine its reliability. Victims might no longer trust their own systems, even after restoration. This tactic can compromise decision-making by introducing false or incomplete information. It can also destroy forensic evidence, hinder incident response, and tamper with regulatory or legal records, thus increasing compliance and legal risks. When data integrity is in question – whether in healthcare, law enforcement, or finance – the stakes go beyond financial loss. Compromised information can directly endanger lives, obstruct justice, or cause long-term damage to public trust.

  Since 2015, ransomware attacks against healthcare facilities have increased by 300%. Such attacks put testing procedures and results, life-saving support and monitoring machines, and the ability of facilities to respond to emergencies at risk. Quite literally, a ransomware attack can be a life-threatening event. Further, this type of integrity-focused extortion strikes at the trustworthiness of clinical data and poses operational and financial risk as well as direct threats to human life.

  This general principle is not limited to healthcare. Other sectors have experienced damaging integrity attacks with lasting consequences. In 2018, a pair of Iranian threat actors, later indicted by a federal grand jury, conducted a ransomware attack against the city of Atlanta and caused large-scale disruptions to municipal services and infrastructure. The attackers used a strain of ransomware that caused permanent damage to parts of the Atlanta Police Department and caused millions of dollars in losses for the city.

The triple threat of triple-extortion ransomware

Triple-extortion ransomware is one of the most dangerous evolutions in the ransomware threat landscape. It affects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of an environment and requires organizations to take greater measures to protect against an ever-evolving threat.

Because they hit at the core of an organization’s defenses by weaving together attacks on confidentiality, integrity, and availability, triple-extortion ransomware attacks can force organizations into a position where operations are disrupted, sensitive data faces public exposure, and the reliability of remaining data is uncertain. By targeting all three principles, threat actors maximize operational impact and the psychological pressure on victims.

Triple-extortion ransomware is designed to overwhelm victims by layering multiple forms of coercion: encryption, data theft, and sometimes even distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Each added tactic intensifies the operational pressure, disrupts incident response, and raises the perceived cost of noncompliance. As a result, attackers often demand higher ransom payments. Attackers might require victims to pay an extra ransom to either stop an active DDoS attack or prevent one from being initiated. Threat actors also might leverage their access to the victim’s environment to extort third parties connected to the victim, such as prospective clients, business partners, and other affiliated entities.

While traditional ransomware campaigns primarily focus on encrypting data and threatening exposure, subsequent attacks targeting availability exploit additional vulnerabilities and can affect infrastructure that might have escaped initial compromise. When ransomware and DDoS attacks are launched in tandem, the combined effect can paralyze public-facing systems, degrade internal communications, and delay recovery timelines.

Groups such as Blackcat and affiliates of AvosLocker ransomware have adopted this layered model. In addition to encrypting data and threatening leaks, they also warn of or launch DDoS attacks during negotiations. Blackcat is especially known for operating a public leak site that publishes exfiltrated data if demands are unmet, potentially triggering regulatory scrutiny and reputational fallout in parallel with service outages.

The impact goes beyond the initial disruption. Even when ransom is paid, recovery is rarely straightforward. Malware strains used in triple-extortion campaigns often cause persistent system degradation. Destroyed backups, corrupted recovery points, and reinfection risks complicate remediation efforts. If root causes, such as unpatched vulnerabilities or misconfigured services, remain unresolved, the organization might face follow-up attacks within weeks.

Third parties: A backdoor risk vector

Indiscriminate ransomware attacks on organizations remain one of the most paramount challenges in cybersecurity. Ransomware threat actors’ chief motivator generally is financial gain. As such, ransomware attacks often prioritize organizations that can provide the largest payout.

In 2021, hacker group REvil targeted Quanta Computer, a major laptop manufacturer, with a ransomware attack. When Quanta Computer refused to pay, REvil demanded a $50 million ransom from Quanta’s customer, Apple, ahead of a major launch event.

Similarly, ransomware threat actors have used third parties and IT software to perform supply chain attacks and gain access through trusted third parties. Software organizations such as Kaseya and Atlassian, among others, have been targeted as beachheads to permit threat actors access to organizations using their software.

Strategies for mitigating risk

Defending against triple-extortion ransomware requires more than traditional perimeter controls or reactive incident response measures. These campaigns exploit technical vulnerabilities as well as operational gaps, legal exposures, and reputational weak points. As a result, effective mitigation strategies must be layered, proactive, and mapped to the full spectrum of risks across the confidentiality, integrity, and availability triad.

No single tool can eliminate the threat. But organizations that prioritize resilience through preparation, practice, and continual control validation are better positioned to resist the compounding effects of multivector extortion. Following are proactive steps organizations can take to protect their environments.

• Stop data leakage. When defending the confidentiality of data, the goal is to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data, a key element of triple-extortion ransomware. Implementing a comprehensive data loss prevention solution is critical to modifying and blocking unauthorized data transfers and preventing data exfiltration. Additionally, implementing identity-aware access management focused around zero-trust principles can considerably reduce access to data by shrinking the attack surface. Lastly, data minimization can drastically reduce risk as attackers can’t steal data that has already been purged.
• Protect system integrity. Defending system integrity requires safeguarding the accuracy and trustworthiness of systems and data and preventing tampering by ransomware actors aiming to destabilize or coerce. Configuring backups in write-once, read-many formats, whether tape-based or software-defined, helps prevent ransomware from modifying or corrupting backups, a vital step in data recovery and trust. Using file integrity monitoring solutions can help detect unauthorized changes in real time and provide insight into suspicious activity early on.
• Build network and backup resilience. Keeping systems and data accessible is crucial. DDoS mitigation services can help defend against infrastructure overload attacks and prevent the DDoS attack from overwhelming the network to the point of availability loss. Standard availability considerations are critical. Implementing redundant systems alongside failover mechanisms goes a long way in mitigating the potential fallout from a DDoS attack. Making sure offline backups can be restored quickly and efficiently is critical in reducing potential downtime. As such, regular testing is critical.
• Implement third-party controls. Beyond technical controls, third-party risk management plays a critical role in limiting the blast radius of a ransomware event. Many triple-extortion ransomware campaigns target vendors or service providers as a path to higher-value, downstream victims. A compromise at a single supplier can cascade across an ecosystem and result in indirect ransom demands, data exposure, or service disruption. Organizations should assess vendor controls during onboarding and throughout the relationship life cycle, with particular focus on incident response maturity, data handling practices, and contractual breach notification obligations.
• Cover remaining gaps with cyber insurance. Financial risks of ransomware attacks can be partially offset through cyber insurance. While coverage terms are shifting in response to the scale and complexity of ransomware attacks, insurance policies that include extortion events, business interruption, and forensic recovery costs can provide a safety net when technical and legal costs escalate. However, relying solely on insurance without investing in prevention or cyber resilience controls might increase premiums and introduce gaps in coverage during claim review.

Why investing in cyber resilience matters

Triple-extortion ransomware reflects a broader shift in the threat landscape from technical disruption to strategic coercion. These campaigns are not limited to encrypting systems or leaking data. They represent coordinated efforts to erode trust, interrupt operations, and pressure organizations on multiple fronts. By targeting the core principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, ransomware actors have reshaped extortion into a full-spectrum business threat.

Mitigating this risk requires more than tactical defense. It calls for sustained investment in cyber resilience: protecting data at rest and in transit, validating the integrity of critical systems, and building redundancy across operations. It also means assessing third-party exposure, validating backup reliability, and preparing incident response teams for scenarios that extend beyond the perimeter.

As ransomware tactics continue to evolve, so must the defensive strategies. Organizations that align their controls to the CIA triad – not just in theory, but in practice – can be better equipped to absorb the shock of an attack without capitulating to extortion.