Introduction
Gone are the days that cyber threats and attacks are the work of elite hackers, or those who have deep coding skills, nation state support, and unique access to high-level tools.
In 2025, and accelerating in coming years, it’s disturbingly easy to launch an attack. With ready-made malware or custom code sold on the dark web, anyone can become a threat. This is the new normal. Where cybercrime is more accessible, scalable, and profitable, anyone with but a few dollars and intent has the power to attack…
And that’s what makes it dangerous.
Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) is the commercialisation of cyber extortion. If streaming platforms changed how people consume entertainment, RaaS is quietly transforming how cybercrime is done. One doesn’t need to write malware anymore. One can just pay a one-time fee, or sign-up for a monthly subscription, and everything else is taken care of. This is cybercrime in the age of done-for-you-ication.
In a 2023 interview with Rik Ferguson of Forescout, Ferguson warned that multiple extortion techniques have been in use for a couple of years already.
“Affiliates make use of the ransomware for attacks and divide the profit between the affiliates and the malware authors,” explained Ferguson.
The result? Anyone is now capable of disrupting critical infrastructure, shutting down industries, or even holding governments hostage.
What Happens When Attacks Become This Easy
First, the financial damage is massive. Victims face ransom demands, often weeks-long downtime, reputational damage, data recovery costs, regulatory fines, and lost business, all from a single incident. Reports showed that the average ransomware attack is costing businesses approx. $5 million, most of it stemming from RaaS campaigns.
But the damage goes far beyond financial concerns. With the democratisation of cybercrime, the space is no longer dealing with a few skilled groups but hundreds or thousands of opportunists. Attacks will continuie to become more frequent and sophisticated, making detection, attribution, and prevention harder just through the sheer increase in volume. Security teams are constantly in an incident response mode, executives are expected to understand how the threat is continuously evolving, and organisations are pressured to come up with new mitigation and resiliency responses. For smaller organisations, the choices are limited; either they pay the ransom, or likely lose data and potentially cease operating.
While RaaS shares some overlapping tactics and delivery methods with traditional threats and attacks, it’s fundamentally different in purpose, structure, and impact.For instance, traditional attacks like phishing, social engineering, and credential stuffing are commonly used to gain access to systems and networks. Meanwhile, RaaS is specifically designed for extortion. Its primary goal is to encrypt a victim’s data and demand payment for its release in a more industrialised methodology. Malware authors write ransomware tools and sell it to their affiliates, who then carry out the attack. Traditional attacks don’t operate on the same level of effecicay as they don’t have an affiliate structure because their nature has traditionally been more of a DIY nature. With that technical baseline limitation removed, the increase in volume is essentially uncapped.
Finally, with historical ransomware attacks, the story is typically one centred on stealth – sitting quietly in the background, collecting information, and avoiding detection. RaaS, however, is much more noticeable and disruptive,if not by design, then certainly leant into. Once launched, files are locked and screens immedaitely show ransom notes – often the very graphics designed to instill a full-blown crisis mode for the victims.
Conclusion
With RaaS adding to the complexity of security risks, the answer is not just new tools or technology, there’s also a need to shift in mindset, governance, and operations. It’s imperative that organisations accept that prevention is no longer enough. With its scale, the focus must be on resilience. How fast can you detect, contain, and recover? Response plans shouldn’t just be on paper, they need to be pragmatically tested and improved over time.
Governance must evolve, too. The pressure shouldn’t be on the IT teams alone. Instead, executives need to understand how this threat is continuously moving and how it can impact the business. There’s a need for clearer security decisions, alignment of business and security priorities, and accountability measures.
Most importantly, this is not the time to advocate for shortcuts. Instead, teams should tighten controls, segment networks, and monitor constantly.
