The newest report from Check Point Research, titled The State of Ransomware Q3 2025, offers one of the clearest warnings yet for business owners. The ransomware ecosystem is expanding, fracturing, and quickly outpacing traditional security controls.
This article draws directly from that report and breaks down what it means for your business, why attacks are becoming harder to stop, and why adopting an Isolation and Containment approach with AppGuard is now essential.
Source: The State of Ransomware Q3 2025, Check Point Research
https://research.checkpoint.com/2025/the-state-of-ransomware-q3-2025/
Ransomware activity hits an all time high
Check Point Research reports that Q3 2025 saw the highest number of active ransomware and extortion groups ever recorded. According to the report:
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There were 85 active ransomware and extortion groups seen during Q3.
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The top 10 groups were responsible for only 56 percent of victims, compared to 71 percent earlier in the year.
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Smaller and more agile groups are now dominating the landscape.
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Many of these groups have no long term infrastructure, no brand reputation to maintain, and no interest in honoring decryption or recovery promises.
This shift means the threat landscape is no longer led by a few large, predictable groups. Instead, businesses are facing dozens of independent operators who use fast changing tools and methods that evade traditional detection.
In plain language: ransomware has become harder to predict, harder to track, and harder to detect in time.
The cycle of fragmentation and re consolidation
The report also highlights an important trend. Although many major RaaS platforms have been disrupted by law enforcement, their former affiliates have not disappeared. Instead, they have splintered into smaller crews or created their own private operations.
Then, in September 2025, a major player returned: LockBit 5.0.
The new version includes:
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Better evasion
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Multi platform capability across Windows, Linux, and ESXi
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Stronger encryption
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Improved tools for persistence and stealth
This combination of fragmentation plus a revived major actor shows that the ransomware threat is becoming both broader and deeper at the same time.
It is not enough to defend against one big group. Now there are countless others, each capable of launching serious attacks.
Why the Detect and Respond model is falling behind
For years, organizations relied on tools designed to identify malicious behavior, raise an alert, and then guide response teams to contain the problem. The issue is that ransomware actors now move too fast.
The Check Point Research report shows:
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Small operators deploy new tools before detection rules exist
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Established groups like LockBit use advanced evasion
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Data theft often happens long before encryption
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By the time detection tools notice something unusual, the damage is done
A Detect and Respond model assumes you can see and react quickly enough. But modern threats are now designed specifically to outpace detection.
When a small group launches a custom attack or a revived group deploys new evasion tactics, waiting for detection and then reacting is often too late.
Why Isolation and Containment is the stronger strategy
Isolation and Containment flips the problem on its head. Instead of detecting threats, this model limits what applications can do, contains risky processes, and prevents behavior associated with malware from ever succeeding.
This is the foundation of AppGuard, which has spent more than 10 years proving its ability to stop attacks without relying on signatures, detection patterns, or threat intelligence updates.
AppGuard works by:
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Preventing unauthorized process launches
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Blocking code injection
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Stopping lateral movement
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Containing abnormal behavior automatically
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Protecting even when threats are new, unknown, or zero day
The Check Point Research report makes it clear that the threat landscape is becoming too fast and too unpredictable for reactive models. AppGuard provides a stable and proactive barrier that does not depend on keeping up with attacker innovation.
What business leaders should take from the Q3 2025 report
If ransomware activity reached record highs this quarter, and if the number of active groups continues to rise, the question is not whether businesses will be targeted. The question is whether they will survive the incident without significant disruption.
Here is what the data means for your business:
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You cannot rely on attackers behaving predictably
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You cannot count on detection tools catching everything
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You cannot depend on the promises of cybercriminals
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You cannot wait until after detection to respond
The safest path is to prevent attacks from executing at all.
Call to action
The Check Point Research Q3 2025 report makes it clear that ransomware is evolving faster than traditional security models. Businesses must shift from Detect and Respond to Isolation and Containment.
AppGuard is uniquely positioned to deliver that protection, backed by a decade of proven success and now available for the commercial sector.
If you want to protect your business from the kinds of sophisticated and unpredictable threats described in the Q3 2025 report, talk with us at CHIPS. We can show you how AppGuard prevents these incidents from ever gaining a foothold.
Your business deserves protection that does not depend on getting lucky. Reach out to CHIPS today and learn how AppGuard keeps ransomware contained before it can cause damage.
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