Ransomware Negotiations Mirror Aggressive Sales Tactics 

A Nord Security study analyzing leaked ransomware negotiation transcripts shows how modern ransomware groups increasingly operate like professional sales organizations. 

The report found that attackers frequently use discounts, upselling tactics, psychological pressure, and negotiation strategies to maximize payments from victims. 

The report reviewed 246 leaked negotiation transcripts from 2020 to 2026, covering more than 11,500 individual messages exchanged between ransomware operators and victim organizations.

According to the study, ransomware negotiations have become highly structured and transactional, often resembling customer service interactions rather than chaotic criminal exchanges. 

Researchers found that only 25.6% of negotiations ultimately resulted in ransom payments, while successful settlements still averaged a median discount of 57% from the attackers’ original demand.

Key Takeaways of the Ransomware Negotiation Findings

• Modern ransomware negotiations increasingly resemble structured sales and customer service interactions rather than chaotic criminal exchanges.
• Professional ransomware negotiators secured larger payment reductions compared to organizations negotiating internally.
• Threat actors frequently use psychological pressure tactics, including deadline threats, reputational damage, and stolen data leak warnings, to influence victims.
• Ransomware groups are increasingly adopting ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) models with upsell tactics, tiered pricing, and additional paid services.
• Strategic delays during negotiations can help incident response teams contain threats, validate backups, investigate compromise scope, and accelerate recovery efforts.

Professional Negotiators Often Secure Better Outcomes

The report found that nearly 73% of organizations negotiated directly with ransomware operators instead of hiring professional negotiators. 

However, companies that used experienced negotiators secured a median discount of 62.5%, compared to 46.2% for organizations handling negotiations internally.

Nord Security researchers said attackers frequently rely on psychological manipulation, artificial urgency, and reputational pressure throughout negotiations. 

Common ransomware tactics included threats to leak stolen data, cryptocurrency payment instructions, deadline pressure, and media leak threats intended to damage organizational trust and reputation.

“Attackers often have a ‘discount phase’ early on as they’ll reduce the initial demand by 25%–70% if companies engage quickly,” said Mantas Sabeckis, Senior Threat Intelligence Researcher at Nord Security in the report. 

He added, “This is a sales tactic.”

The study also found that threats to publish or leak stolen data appeared in 76.8% of analyzed negotiations, while 43.5% involved reputational pressure through media leaks. 

Nearly 42% of negotiations also included deadline pressure designed to force faster decisions from victims.

Ransomware Groups Increasingly Upsell Services

Researchers also observed ransomware groups increasingly adopting ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) business models with tiered pricing and upsell tactics. 

Some groups offered separate pricing for decryption tools, data deletion, bundled recovery services, and even post-incident security reports.

According to the findings, 21.6% of attackers offered standalone decryption tools, while 16.7% offered data destruction as an additional paid service. 

In some cases, ransomware groups even charged victims extra fees for extending negotiation deadlines or provided multiple recovery pricing tiers similar to commercial service packages.

The study highlighted leaked negotiations involving the Akira ransomware group, where victims were reportedly presented with menu-style pricing options for decryption assistance, evidence of data deletion, and vulnerability reports.

Researchers cautioned that promises regarding stolen data deletion remain unverifiable.

“Even though the promise of data deletion is common, there’s no way for companies to actually verify deletion,” Sabeckis said.

Strategic Delays Help Organizations Buy Time

The report also examined how victim organizations attempt to regain leverage during negotiations. 

Common tactics included requesting decrypted test files, negotiating lower prices, claiming financial hardship, and strategically delaying responses to provide incident response teams more time to investigate and recover systems.

Researchers noted that negotiation and technical recovery efforts frequently occur in parallel, allowing organizations to verify backups, assess the scope of compromise, and identify whether attackers still maintain access to the environment.

“Every hour you buy is an hour your incident response team uses to advance recovery,” Sabeckis said.

The study additionally found that disclosing law enforcement involvement or cyber insurance coverage sometimes escalated negotiations rather than improving outcomes. 

Only 2.8% of victims disclosed law enforcement involvement, which researchers said often triggered more aggressive pressure tactics from ransomware groups.

How Organizations Should Respond During a Ransomware Incident 

Ransomware response efforts often require technical containment, business continuity planning, legal coordination, and communication management to occur simultaneously. 

Security teams should focus on preserving forensic evidence, validating the scope of compromise, and maintaining operational visibility while recovery efforts are underway. 

Nord’s report also highlights how negotiation activity can provide valuable time for incident response teams to investigate affected systems and verify backup integrity. 

• Isolate affected systems from the network without powering them down to preserve forensic evidence and prevent further lateral movement.
• Activate incident response procedures immediately and coordinate with legal, executive leadership, cyber insurance providers, and external response partners.
• Verify backup integrity, determine whether data was exfiltrated, and assess whether attackers still maintain access to the environment.
• Monitor for ongoing attacker activity, persistence mechanisms, unauthorized remote access, and additional credential compromise across systems.
• Preserve ransom notes, negotiation logs, indicators of compromise, and affected system data to support forensic investigation and recovery efforts.
• Use negotiation activity strategically to buy time for containment, investigation, remediation, and restoration operations while avoiding unnecessary disclosures.
• Regularly test ransomware response, containment, backup restoration, and crisis communication plans to improve resilience during active incidents.

The report also highlights how ransomware negotiations are only one stage of a broader cybercriminal ecosystem built around specialized attack roles and services. 

Beyond the extortion process itself, leaked negotiations provided insight into how threat actors initially gain access to victim environments before ransomware deployment begins. 

Initial Access Brokers Continue Driving Ransomware Attacks

Beyond negotiation behavior, the report also provided insight into how ransomware groups initially compromise victim environments. 

The most commonly disclosed entry method involved access purchased from initial access brokers (IABs), appearing in 31 analyzed cases.

Other frequently disclosed attack vectors included compromised VPN or Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) infrastructure, Kerberoasting attacks targeting Active Directory service accounts, brute-force attacks, and phishing campaigns.

The findings highlight the growing commercialization and specialization of the ransomware ecosystem, where separate criminal groups increasingly handle initial compromise, credential access, malware deployment, negotiation, and extortion operations as part of a broader cybercriminal supply chain.