An analysis found that organizations carrying out ransomware—cyberattacks that hack into individuals' and corporations' systems, encrypt critical data, and then demand money in return for recovery—are using corporations' core infrastructure as the main infiltration route rather than employees' PCs.
According to SK shieldus' "2026 first-half KARA ransomware trends report" on the 14th, recent ransomware groups have been focusing their attacks on corporations' infrastructure such as virtual private networks (VPNs), firewalls, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
As hacking groups' techniques grow more sophisticated and their targets expand to corporations' core systems, corporations' cybersecurity strategies are also changing. With the growing recognition that blocking attacks alone is not enough, they have begun to focus on securing "cyber resilience," which minimizes damage after an incident and quickly normalizes critical operations.
For example, if a manufacturing corporation's ERP server is infected with ransomware, production planning, materials ordering, and shipping operations can be halted simultaneously. If a VPN or firewall is attacked, remote work environments and access to internal business networks can be restricted, potentially crippling key tasks. SK shieldus said, "As recent cyberattacks directly target the core systems of corporate operations beyond individual PCs, the speed of recovery after an incident is emerging as an important factor in corporate competitiveness."
The report stressed that, rather than establishing a response framework after an attack begins, organizations should build emergency response procedures and collaboration structures in advance. It also recommended that ransomware response go beyond malware blocking to include preestablished incident response procedures, decision-making systems, and reporting and recovery frameworks, along with regular drills.
If multiple measures—such as confirming signs of compromise, analyzing the cause, determining the scope of damage, collaborating with internal response teams, and reporting to management—are not carried out simultaneously immediately after an incident, the initial response can be delayed and the damage can spread quickly.
As a result, more corporations have recently been trying to build response frameworks before incidents occur. A SK shieldus official said, "In particular, demand is increasing among finance and manufacturing, where service interruptions cause major losses, and among corporations that hold personal information and core data," adding, "As supply chain security and regulatory compliance needs grow stronger, this trend is expanding to mid-sized corporations."
Reports of domestic security incidents are also on the rise. According to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA)'s "2026 cyber threat trends report," the number of reported incidents last year was 2,383, up 26.3% from the previous year. In the first half of this year, 1,236 cases were received, up 19.5% from the same period a year earlier.
SK shieldus is helping corporations adopt hacking incident analysis services both before and after incidents occur. Before an incident, it identifies the customer's IT environment and response organization and sets up collaboration processes and emergency response procedures so specialists can be deployed quickly when a real incident happens.
The service identifies the corporation's IT asset and network environment, emergency contact system, and more, and based on this, it establishes in advance the customer-specific response organization and roles, internal collaboration processes, and decision-making and reporting systems.
It also supports the entire incident response process, including confirming signs of compromise and log analysis, malware analysis, digital forensics, determining the cause of attack, analyzing the scope of damage, and devising measures to prevent recurrence. In addition to technical analysis, it provides collaboration with the customer's internal response organization, reporting to management, external communications, and regulatory response advisory.
A distinguishing feature is that the service can be used in various ways during the contract period even if no actual incident occurs. If no real incident occurs during the contract, after consulting with the customer, it can be converted to and used for necessary services such as security assessments based on EDR (endpoint detection and response) and NDR (network detection and response), MDR (managed detection and response), compromise assessment, in-depth forensics of suspicious servers, cyber insurance, and law firms.
A SK shieldus official said, "The golden time for incident response is determined not after an incident occurs but by how systematically you prepared in normal times," adding, "Based on the industry's largest volume of incident response experience, we will build optimized response frameworks and collaboration processes for customer environments in advance to support swift and systematic responses when real incidents occur."