A Comprehensive Survey of Ransomware Types and the Rise of Ransomware-as-a-Service: Threats and Implications

Ransomware has rapidly emerged as one of the most severe cyber threats impacting digital infrastructure worldwide. By leveraging system vulnerabilities, attackers deploy malicious software to encrypt user or organizational data, later demanding ransom often in untraceable cryptocurrencies to restore access. The underreporting of ransomware incidents obscures the true scale of this threat, hindering effective response. This study systematically reviews the types, impacts and evolving methodologies of ransomware, analyzes incident data, and recommends preventive and proactive strategies. Since the attacks reporting is also less it becomes difficult to receive all the information about the attacks. This survey focuses mainly on the vulnerabilities of ransomeware, the damage that it causes and the approaches which can be choosen to avoid the attacks.