CapaOne
Qilin leads Q1 2026 ransomware activity with 361 recorded victims. The attack model has shifted from encryption to identity theft and data exfiltration at 96%. Here is what that means for European IT teams — and the endpoint posture that addresses it
The numbers from Q1 2026 are consistent across every major threat intelligence source. ReliaQuest recorded 2,638 ransomware posts on data-leak sites — a 22% increase year-on-year. BlackFog identified 2,160 undisclosed attacks in the same period, representing only a fraction of total activity. ZeroFox observed over 2,000 separate incidents. The trend line from 2024 through Q4 2025 has not reversed — it has flattened at a high level.
This is not a spike. It is the new baseline.
What has changed is the attack model. BlackFog’s Q1 2026 report shows data exfiltration at 96% of recorded incidents. Attackers are no longer primarily trying to encrypt systems and demand ransom for the decryption key. They are stealing credentials, exfiltrating data, and demanding payment under threat of publication — or simply monetizing the stolen data directly. System downtime is optional.
For European IT managers and CIOs facing NIS2 reporting obligations and insurance renewal pressure, this shift has concrete operational implications. Defenses built around backup-and-restore logic or network segmentation alone do not address a threat model centered on identity compromise and data exfiltration. The response requires a different endpoint posture.
Qilin and the Q1 2026 Threat Landscape: What the Data Shows for European Organizations
Three developments from Q1 2026 are directly relevant to European IT organizations. First, Qilin maintained its position as the most active ransomware group by victim volume, with GuidePoint Research recording 361 victims despite a 25% decline from its Q4 2025 peak. Qilin’s open affiliate recruitment model enables broad, high-volume targeting — the group does not need to select targets carefully when affiliates can attack at scale.
Second, Europe accounted for approximately 22% of all ransomware incidents in Q1 2026, according to ZeroFox’s quarterly wrap-up — a slight increase from Q4 2025. North America and Europe together represent 76% of global incidents. European organizations are not a secondary target.
Third, the identity-first attack pattern is accelerating. BlackFog’s report highlights that 86% of employees now use AI tools weekly, with 49% relying on unsanctioned platforms — creating uncontrolled data pathways alongside the credential-theft vectors that groups like Qilin’s affiliates exploit through RDP compromise, phishing, and NTLM relay attacks. The average volume of data stolen per undisclosed incident reached 743GB in Q1.
Why Endpoint Consolidation Is the Structural Response
The shift from encryption-focused to identity- and data-focused ransomware does not make endpoint management less relevant. It makes it more relevant — because the attack paths now run through endpoint-level vulnerabilities, credential exposure, and privilege abuse rather than through network-level encryption keys.
Fragmented endpoint tooling creates the gaps these attack paths exploit. An organization managing patching in one tool, privilege access in another, vulnerability visibility in a third, and compliance reporting in a spreadsheet does not have a unified view of its risk surface. It has a collection of partial views that leave systematic gaps.
The consolidation case is operational, not theoretical. When a new CVE drops — or when a CISA KEV deadline approaches — the question is how long it takes to know which endpoints are exposed and how long it takes to close that exposure. Fragmented tools mean fragmented answers.
CapaOne Endpoint Management Platform consolidates the capabilities that address the identity-first ransomware model: real-time asset inventory and vulnerability visibility through Security Monitor, privileged access control through Privilege Manager, and automated third-party application patching through Application Manager. One platform. One dashboard. One audit trail.
The European Dimension: Sovereignty, NIS2, and Insurance
For European organizations, the ransomware reality intersects with three converging pressures that make endpoint consolidation a board-level question, not just an IT operation one.
NIS2 reporting obligations: NIS2 Article 21 requires organizations to maintain and demonstrate technical measures to address identified vulnerabilities. When an incident occurs — or when a regulator inquires — the evidence requirement is per-device, per-vulnerability, per-timestamp. Fragmented tools rarely produce that evidence automatically. CapaOne generates it as a standard output of normal operations.
Cyber insurance renewal: Insurers increasingly require documented evidence of patch compliance, privileged access controls, and vulnerability management practices as conditions of coverage. Organizations that cannot demonstrate these controls face premium increases, coverage exclusions, or rejection. The same CapaOne exports that satisfy NIS2 auditors satisfy insurance questionnaires.
Digital sovereignty: CapaOne is built, hosted, and owned in Europe. For IT leaders managing geopolitical risk alongside operational risk, that is not a marketing statement — it is a procurement criterion. No US data residency exposure. No Schrems II complexity. Full GDPR alignment by architecture.
Book a demo of CapaOne Endpoint Management Platform here to see how Security Monitor, Privilege Manager, and Application Manager work together to reduce ransomware exposure — with European hosting and NIS2 reporting built in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Multiple independent sources converge on the same conclusion: ransomware activity stabilized in Q1 2026 at the elevated level reached at the end of 2025. ReliaQuest recorded a 22% year-on-year increase in data-leak site posts. ZeroFox observed over 2,000 incidents. BlackFog identified 2,160 undisclosed attacks. The consistency across sources reflects a genuine sustained threat level, not a reporting artifact.
Traditional ransomware defenses centered on backup integrity and network segmentation address encryption-based attacks. Identity-focused attacks bypass encryption entirely — stealing credentials, exfiltrating data, and monetizing access through SaaS platforms and cloud services. The effective controls are endpoint-level: removing standing local admin rights, patching applications that expose credential theft vectors, and maintaining real-time visibility into configuration drift and vulnerability exposure.
CapaOne’s Privilege Manager removes standing local administrator rights across the fleet, replacing them with just-in-time elevation controlled by policy. This directly reduces the blast radius of credential compromise — a captured credential from a standard-user account has far fewer lateral movement options than one from a local admin account. Security Monitor provides real-time CVE visibility and configuration posture signals that identify the exposure points attackers use for initial access.
Yes. CapaOne generates device-level CSV exports covering patch status, installed versions, configuration posture, remediation actions, and timestamps. These exports satisfy NIS2 Article 21 documentation requirements for both proactive governance reviews and post-incident regulatory inquiries. The same data supports cyber insurance questionnaires and leadership dashboards for monthly reporting.
Qilin affiliates primarily gain initial access through three endpoint-level vectors: RDP brute force against endpoints with exposed remote access, credential phishing that harvests NTLM hashes or session tokens, and exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities in internet-facing applications and browsers. Once inside, the group moves laterally by abusing accounts with standing local administrator rights — which allows rapid escalation from a single compromised endpoint to domain-level access. Removing standing local admin through CapaOne’s Privilege Manager closes the lateral movement path that makes initial access operationally valuable to Qilin affiliates. Patching third-party applications and browsers through Application Manager closes the initial access vectors themselves.
