5 Signs You're About to Become a Ransomware Target

Most business owners assume ransomware only happens to hospitals or giant corporations. Unfortunately, that’s a costly misconception. In reality, small and mid-sized companies are often easier to attack—and more likely to pay the ransom, especially if critical systems are frozen.

We’ve seen it happen in construction firms, law offices, medical practices, even nonprofits. Sometimes, it starts with one unpatched system. Other times, it’s a single email.

Here are five warning signs that suggest your business may be at risk.

1. Outdated Software and Unpatched Systems

If your network includes legacy systems or software that hasn’t been updated in months, you’re exposed. Hackers actively scan for known vulnerabilities in outdated software, often automating the process to find easy targets.

One manufacturer, not a client but associated with a client, delayed updating an old server because “it still worked.” It also hadn’t received security patches in over a year. They were hit with ransomware just weeks later.

The takeaway? If it’s not supported or regularly updated, it’s a liability.

2. An Increase in Phishing Emails

Ransomware often enters through a single inbox. A rise in suspicious emails—especially those asking for passwords, sending strange attachments, or impersonating internal staff—is a red flag.

We’ve seen organizations fall victim simply because an employee opened what looked like a routine vendor invoice. Within hours, files were encrypted and locked.

If phishing attempts are increasing, assume your domain is being watched—and tested.

3. No Formal Cybersecurity Training for Employees

Security awareness isn’t just an IT issue. It’s an organizational one. Companies that don’t provide regular, role-based training are far more likely to experience breaches tied to human error.

One client had excellent hardware—but never trained staff on phishing or file access. The first real threat bypassed every tool they had, because someone didn’t know what not to click. After that near miss, the client invested in quarterly training and additional tools.

Train your team. Test them. Make it part of onboarding and ongoing education.

4. Unusual Network Behavior or Unauthorized Tools

Spikes in traffic during off-hours, new scanning tools, or remote access attempts that weren’t approved—all of these point to potential reconnaissance activity from bad actors.

In one case, we were talking with another vendor that found an unauthorized network scanner quietly mapping out their client’s environment. It had been running for days before anyone noticed. That could have ended in disaster.

Monitoring tools aren’t just for enterprises. If something looks off, it probably is.

5. Sensitive Data, Poorly Secured

If your organization handles financial data, customer records, legal documents, or proprietary IP—and that data isn’t encrypted or access-controlled—you’re a high-value target.

We’ve encountered companies with payroll and tax data stored in shared folders with no password protection. That’s exactly the kind of oversight attackers exploit.

Ask yourself: “If this folder disappeared, would we be in trouble?” If the answer is yes, lock it down.

What to Do (Before It’s Too Late)

A few preventative steps go a long way:

• Patch and update all systems. No exceptions.
• Provide cybersecurity training, at least annually.
• Set up logging and network monitoring.
• Restrict access to sensitive data and use encryption.
• Audit your security stack and ensure it can’t be bypassed.

Don’t know how to do all of that? APEX can help. If you’re unsure where your biggest risks are, we’re happy to talk through a baseline assessment and partner with you to figure out what needs attention.

Choose APEX Computers – you’ll like working with us.

Oh, and if you’d like to learn about the breaches that made the news, here they are:

Key Causes and Attack Trends in 2024

• Lack of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): The Change Healthcare breach, the year’s largest, was enabled by a Citrix portal lacking MFA, allowing attackers to gain access with a single password.
• Cloud Infrastructure Vulnerabilities: Attacks on Snowflake and Ticketmaster exploited weaknesses in cloud hosting accounts and customer service portals, showing the risks of misconfigured or unprotected cloud environments.
• Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS): Groups like LockBit and RansomHub used affiliate models to scale attacks, often leveraging insiders, phishing, or known vulnerabilities to gain access.
• Double/Triple Extortion: Attackers not only encrypted data but also stole it, threatening public leaks or targeting customers and partners to increase pressure for ransom payments.
• Critical Infrastructure Targeting: Healthcare, finance, and public infrastructure were disproportionately targeted, leading to operational disruptions and risks to patient safety and financial stability.

Notable Ransomware Groups in 2024

• ALPHV/BlackCat: Responsible for the Change Healthcare attack, one of the most damaging ever, before disbanding after law enforcement action.
• LockBit: Despite law enforcement disruption, LockBit was linked to multiple large healthcare and financial sector attacks.
• RansomHub: Emerged as the most active group in late 2024, quickly replacing LockBit in terms of volume and impact.
• ShinyHunters and Rhysida: Responsible for high-profile breaches in entertainment and healthcare sectors, respectively.

The biggest ransomware breaches of 2024 were characterized by attacks on healthcare and financial organizations, largely enabled by weak authentication, cloud misconfigurations, and increasingly sophisticated extortion tactics. The Change Healthcare attack stands out as the most disruptive and costly, with the absence of MFA being a critical factor. Ransomware groups evolved their methods, focusing on data theft and multi-layered extortion, making 2024 a particularly severe year for ransomware incidents.