Cyfirma-Tracking-Ransomware-2026.md

**Executive summary:** The Jan 2026 ransomware report describes a mature, service-oriented criminal ecosystem characterized by high-volume, globally distributed campaigns (Jan 2026: ~683 incidents; Dec 2025 peak: 801), a shift to browser-centric user-mediated access and brokered initial-access markets, long-lived loaders that preserve optionality, and extortion tactics that emphasize psychological coercion and silent data theft; the report highlights targeted industries (professional services, manufacturing, IT), geographic concentration (US and Western Europe), growing sophistication and stealth, significant business impact metrics, and strategic, management, and tactical recommendations for resilience.