Privacy & cyber security was triggered as the main driver of loss in 13.2% of claims (primary 9.4%, excess 22.2%), triggered with some loss impact in 14.6%, triggered with no loss impact known in 3.3%, and not triggered in 68.9%.

Extortion coverage was triggered in 11.9% of all claims, showing a significant difference between primary claims(15.6%) and excess claims (3.3%), indicating it is far more common at the primary layer.

Healthcare experienced extortion demands as high as $4 million.

The average cost of an extortion or ransomware incident remains high, particularly when disclosed by an attacker ($5.08 million).

A new quadruple extortion tactic is being used in ransomware campaigns, which builds on double extortion by using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to disrupt business operations and harassing third parties (like customers, partners, and media) to increase the pressure on the victim.

Double extortion remains the most common approach.

28% of Gen Z have fallen victim to extortion scams.

Boomers encountered extortion scams at 23% and fell victim at 7%.

Gen X encountered extortion scams at 35% and fell victim at 15%.

The FBI received 86,415 complaints about extortion in 2024 (versus 48,223 in 2023 and 39,416 in 2022).

Extortion following a ransom demand occurred in 12% of cases.

Manufacturing organisations experienced 29% of attacks involving extortion.

The top cryptocurrencies demanded during extortion are: Bitcoin, Monero, XRP.