In 2025, ransomware attacks are surging, catching many small businesses and startups off guard. Industry reports show a roughly 25% jump in ransomware incidents from 2024. As a start-up, you might think you’re too small to be worth the attention of these sophisticated attackers targeting big-name brands like Adidas and Victoria’s Secret.
But these attacks are indiscriminate. Small and mid-sized companies are targeted nearly four times more often than large firms. This new wave of cyber extortion is very real, and no startup is too small to escape notice. The stakes are high: even losing a few days of operations or customer data can be fatal for a young company, which is why this article is going to dive into the threats facing start-ups from ransomware and what defenses are needed to mitigate its growing threat.
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The New Wave of Ransomware Attacks Hitting Businesses in 2025
By mid-2025, researchers have noted a marked escalation in both the volume and sophistication of ransomware attacks. They’re often twofold: ransomware now commonly involves double extortion, where attackers steal data before encrypting systems, demanding payment for both the decryption key and the stolen information. Data theft prior to encryption has nearly doubled in frequency year-over-year.
Cybercriminals have also proliferated: there are roughly 80 active ransomware groups globally, with about 16 new gangs emerging in 2025 alone. These new adversaries are often fuelled by ‘ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS)’ groups, which provide plug-and-play ransomware systems that mean the only requirement for entry for cybercriminals is now just a healthy crypto wallet to pay for the services, rather than any kind of technical ability.
This trend means more threats and more resources turned on easy prey, able to operate at scale. Just one of these ransomware gangs has hit nearly 900 organizations across multiple sectors by May 2025.
Early 2025 saw record-breaking attack numbers: in January alone, 92 publicized ransomware incidents were reported, a 21% increase over the prior year. These include attacks on major services (like healthcare) and high-value targets (like tech firms).
Across every sector, targeting every level of business, there’s a boom in ransomware, driven by new tactics, AI-enabled phishing, and continued availability of RaaS tools.
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Start-ups and Small Businesses Targeted by Ransomware
Startups and small companies have already felt this surge firsthand. Popular California cannabis retailer Stiiizy (about 39 U.S. stores) discovered that hackers tied to the Everest ransomware gang had exfiltrated customers’ sensitive ID documents in a late-2024 breach. Over 420,000 customer IDs, including driver’s licenses and medical cannabis cards, were taken from Stiiizy’s point-of-sale systems.
In the tech sector, DeepSeek halted new user registrations in January 2025 amid a large-scale cyberattack on its platform. Even outside the U.S., small ventures have been devastated. In May 2025, the Indian grocery-delivery startup KiranaPro (55,000 customers) had its AWS servers completely wiped by attackers: all code and customer data were deleted, leaving its app unable to operate.
It’s clear that savvy hackers aren’t just hitting global brands, but also startups and small businesses.
Why Start-ups Are Prime Targets for Ransomware
Cybercriminals deliberately seek out small companies and startups for several reasons.
First, there are simply far more of them: roughly 34 million small and mid-size U.S. businesses vs only 500 Fortune 500 companies. Criminals focus on these many potential targets, knowing a single successful breach in one small firm can still pay off.
Startups often lack mature security and assume they’re too small to be noticed – a dangerous misconception. In practice, only about 17% of SMBs carry any cyber insurance, and roughly one-third say that just one day of downtime could sink their operation. Attackers exploit this vulnerability: a brief shutdown or stolen data can force a quick ransom payment from a worried owner.
Small companies typically have under-resourced IT staff, legacy software, and minimal incident response planning. They may outsource many services (cloud or SaaS) and assume providers handle security. All these factors (sheer numbers, weaker defenses, less insurance, and more fear of collapse) make startups attractive, low-hanging fruit for ransomware gangs.
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Defenses Startups Need to Mitigate the Threat of Ransomware
The good news is that many countermeasures are straightforward. Cybersecurity experts stress basic cyber hygiene: keep all systems and software up to date, and enforce strong authentication everywhere. The U.S. CISA advisory for 2025 emphasizes simple steps like implementing multi-factor authentication and maintaining offline backups of critical data. Backups should be both off-site and air-gapped (disconnected from your network), so that hackers can’t encrypt or erase all copies.
It’s also vital to regularly test your recovery plan: rehearse restoring data from backups and ensure key personnel know what to do during an incident.
Introducing strict access control, like zero-trust, can also help mitigate the impact of ransomware when attacks occur. Many recent ransomware attacks have been devastating due to the attackers’ ability to move laterally, and cutting them off from this access, whether through defenses or through just pulling the plug on your network, can massively reduce their potential impact.
Ongoing employee training is important, too. Phishing remains a common entry point for ransomware, so staff must learn to recognize and report suspicious emails or login requests.
Finally, consider financial risk transfer: the average ransomware response costs an SMB hundreds of thousands of dollars, so cyber liability insurance can help cover ransom or recovery expenses if prevention fails.
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Conclusion
Ransomware is not disappearing, and its rising tide in 2025 shows no mercy on younger companies. Startups can no longer assume ‘it won’t happen to us’. The evidence is clear: sophisticated gangs are hunting small businesses. The time to act is now. Treat cyber protection as a business imperative, and you can significantly lower the risk of devastating consequences from a ransomware attack.
Stay alert, prepare your defenses today, and turn security into one more asset that helps your venture succeed tomorrow.
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