Ransomware is no longer a loud smash and grab attack. According to a recent article in ET Edge Insights summarizing the Barracuda Managed XDR Global Threat Report, 90 percent of ransomware incidents in 2025 exploited firewalls through known vulnerabilities or compromised accounts.
This is a major shift. The firewall is supposed to be the first line of defense. Instead, attackers are using it as the front door.
The article explains that threat actors are blending malicious activity into what appear to be routine IT changes. These are actions that happen every day in most organizations. Because they look legitimate, they often avoid raising red flags until it is too late.
Attackers Are Hiding in Plain Sight
The Barracuda research analyzed more than two trillion IT events, nearly 600,000 security alerts, and over 300,000 protected endpoints and devices. The findings are alarming.
Every investigated incident involved at least one unprotected or rogue endpoint.
96 percent of cases that included lateral movement resulted in ransomware deployment.
The fastest attack moved from initial breach to full encryption in just three hours.
Three hours.
That is not enough time for most security teams to detect suspicious activity, investigate, escalate, and contain an attack. It is barely enough time to recognize what is happening.
Even more concerning is how attackers are gaining access. Many of these incidents involved exploiting unpatched firewall vulnerabilities, brute forcing weak credentials, abusing VPN services, or misusing privileged accounts.
In many cases, security tools were disabled along the way. Multifactor authentication was turned off. Endpoint protections were bypassed. These changes often appeared to be normal administrative adjustments, which allowed attackers to stay hidden.
Firewalls Are Not Failing Alone
It is important to understand that firewalls are not inherently broken. They fail when they are misconfigured, unpatched, or poorly monitored.
But even when configured properly, firewalls cannot stop everything. Once an attacker gains access through a vulnerability or compromised credential, the real damage often happens inside the network.
That is where lateral movement, privilege escalation, and ransomware deployment take place.
Traditional security models assume that perimeter defenses and detection tools will identify malicious behavior quickly enough to stop it. The data in this report suggests otherwise.
When 96 percent of lateral movement leads to ransomware, it means attackers are operating with very little resistance once they are inside.
The Problem with Detect and Respond
For years, cybersecurity has centered on a detect and respond strategy. Tools generate alerts. Analysts investigate. Teams respond and remediate.
This approach assumes there is enough time between intrusion and impact.
But when encryption can occur within hours, the timing advantage belongs to the attacker.
If your strategy depends on catching malicious behavior after it starts, you are playing defense in a race you are unlikely to win. The more sophisticated the attacker, the quieter the activity. When malicious actions resemble routine IT tasks, detection becomes even harder.
More alerts do not solve this problem. Faster alerts do not fully solve it either.
The only reliable way to win is to prevent unauthorized activity from executing in the first place.
Why Isolation and Containment Matter
This is where a shift in thinking is required.
Instead of focusing solely on detecting bad behavior, businesses need to prioritize isolation and containment. This model assumes breaches will be attempted and designs controls that restrict what processes and users can do, even if they gain access.
AppGuard is built around this philosophy.
With a proven 10 year track record and now available for commercial use, AppGuard protects endpoints by enforcing policy based restrictions that stop unauthorized actions before damage can occur. It does not rely on signatures or constant alert monitoring. It prevents applications and processes from performing actions outside their defined boundaries.
In practical terms, this means:
Malicious code cannot execute in protected memory space.
Unauthorized privilege escalation is blocked at the endpoint.
Lateral movement is restricted before ransomware can spread.
Encryption attempts are contained before files are locked.
Even if a firewall vulnerability is exploited, even if credentials are compromised, isolation and containment prevent the attacker from completing their objective.
The Time to Shift Is Now
The findings highlighted in the ET Edge Insights article are not theoretical. They are based on real world incidents across thousands of organizations.
If 90 percent of ransomware attacks are exploiting firewalls, then relying solely on perimeter defenses and detection tools is no longer sufficient.
Business leaders must ask a critical question. Are we trying to detect attackers fast enough, or are we preventing them from succeeding at all?
At CHIPS, we believe the future of cybersecurity lies in moving from detect and respond to isolation and containment. AppGuard represents that shift. It is a proven endpoint protection solution designed to stop ransomware and advanced threats before they can execute, move laterally, or encrypt your data.
If you are a business owner or executive responsible for protecting your organization, now is the time to rethink your strategy.
Talk with us at CHIPS about how AppGuard can help prevent the type of incident described in the Barracuda report. Let us show you how isolation and containment can protect your business from ransomware that slips past traditional defenses.
The threat landscape has changed. Your protection strategy should too.
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