editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links
to our partners.
Learn More
Ransomware incidents often remain hidden until the business impact becomes unavoidable, leaving organizations and defenders with little visibility into the true scope of the damage.
Recent activity tied to the SafePay ransomware group illustrates how this lack of transparency allows modern extortion campaigns to operate largely out of public view.
“This ransomware group puts a sinister twist on the phrase ‘it’s just business,’” said Assaf Morag, a cybersecurity researcher at Flare.
He added, “The way they target their ‘customers closely’ resembles a legitimate business operation: identify the most relevant market segments, then target them to sell your product.”
Assaf also explained, “In this case, however, they deliberately focus on small and mid-sized businesses, or companies that are large enough to pay but small enough to struggle with the disruption and pressure caused by their attacks.”
The Business Fallout of Ransomware Attacks
When ransomware forces a company to shut its doors, the breach might not come to light through a press release or regulatory filing.
Instead, the damage surfaces later — through layoffs, acquisitions that quietly fall apart, or legal disputes over what went wrong.
That was the case when UK transport firm KNP Logistics collapsed after a ransomware attack reportedly triggered by a single weak password and the absence of multi-factor authentication.
As incidents like this show, ransomware’s most severe impacts often remain invisible until failure becomes unavoidable.
SafePay ransomware is a clear example of how modern extortion campaigns exploit that lack of transparency.
Emerging in late 2024 and scaling rapidly through 2025, SafePay has published hundreds of victims on Tor-based leak sites — many of which never publicly disclosed an incident.
SafePay operates a classic double-extortion model: attackers steal data, encrypt systems to cause downtime, and publish victims on leak sites when negotiations stall.
This approach shifts pressure away from purely technical recovery and toward legal, regulatory, and reputational fallout — especially for organizations operating under strict compliance requirements.
Inside SafePay’s Victim Profile
Flare researchers analyzed 500 SafePay leak-site records to better understand who is being targeted and why.
Analysis of the 500 leak records shows that more than 90% of SafePay’s victims are small or mid-sized businesses (SMBs).
These organizations typically have enough revenue to pay a ransom but lack the financial and operational resilience to absorb prolonged downtime.
In contrast, large enterprises — despite greater ability to pay — often have more complex legal processes and slower decision-making, making them less attractive targets for this group.
Sector analysis reveals that approximately 66% of victims are service-based organizations, including professional services, healthcare providers, industrial services, and retail SMEs.
This is a disproportionate share relative to the broader economy and suggests deliberate economic targeting rather than indiscriminate scanning.
These businesses are often highly dependent on IT availability and handle sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), legal records, or financial information.
The researchers found that victims tend to be clustered in high-GDP, high-regulation regions.
The United States accounts for 158 victims in the dataset, followed by Germany with 76. These regions combine strong economic output with strict regulatory frameworks such as GDPR and NIS2 in the EU, and HIPAA and state breach-notification laws in the US.
From an attacker’s perspective, regulation becomes leverage: even limited data exposure can trigger regulatory scrutiny, lawsuits, insurance complications, and reputational damage.
Building Ransomware Resilience
Ransomware groups like SafePay show that prevention alone is no longer sufficient to manage cyber risk.
Attackers increasingly exploit operational pressure, regulatory exposure, and organizational blind spots rather than relying solely on technical vulnerabilities.
To limit impact, organizations must prioritize visibility, containment, and recovery alongside detection.
- Incorporate ransomware leak intelligence into third-party risk management, M&A due diligence, and cyber insurance workflows to identify undisclosed exposure and latent risk.
- Strengthen identity security by enforcing phishing-resistant MFA, privileged access controls, strong password hygiene, and monitoring for credential abuse.
- Reduce blast radius through network segmentation, restricted remote access, and controls that limit lateral movement after initial compromise.
- Improve detection and response by centralizing logs, monitoring for data exfiltration and ransomware behaviors, and enabling rapid containment workflows.
- Ensure recovery readiness by maintaining immutable or offline backups, separating backup credentials from production systems, and regularly testing restoration processes.
- Conduct ransomware-specific tabletop exercises and test incident response plans.
These actions help organizations reduce ransomware impact by limiting exposure, accelerating response, and ensuring reliable recovery.
Why Regulated SMBs Are Prime Targets
SafePay reflects a broader shift in ransomware operations, where attackers prioritize leverage over size by targeting organizations under the greatest operational and regulatory pressure.
Small and mid-sized businesses in regulated industries often depend heavily on uninterrupted IT operations and manage highly sensitive data.
They also typically lack the security depth and resilience of larger enterprises, creating conditions that maximize disruption, accelerate decision-making, and strengthen extortion leverage.
As ransomware groups increasingly exploit implicit trust and operational dependencies, many organizations are turning to zero-trust principles.
