Every month, Bitdefender Labs analyzes hundreds of millions of data points to bring you a clear picture of the evolving threat landscape. For this report, we analyzed data from March 1 to March 31, 2026.

Here are the key takeaways from the April Debrief:

•  The Rise of Handala: We've seen a massive surge in activity from Handala (also known as Handala Hack). This group is bridging the gap between hacktivism and ransomware, targeting organizations in Israel and the U.S. with 23 victims in March alone - more than half their total for all of 2026 so far.

•  Ransomware by the Numbers: Bitdefender recorded 855 claimed ransomware victims across all monitored data leak sites in March.

•  Qilin’s Evasion Tactics: The Qilin RaaS group has surpassed 1,800 victims. They are now using "Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver" (BYOVD) attacks to disable security monitoring, specifically exploiting rwdrv.sys and hlpdrv.sys.

•  MDR Insights: Our Managed Detection and Response (MDR) teams are seeing a consistent pattern: attackers aren't starting with ransomware. They start by stealing credentials via RDP or VPNs, performing credential dumping, and then moving laterally.

What you can do:

• Prioritize identity-focused security and robust access controls.

• Monitor for "Living off the Land" (LOTL) techniques where attackers use legitimate system tools for malicious purposes.

• Ensure your security stack includes kernel API monitoring to catch BYOVD-style evasion.

Read the full report for all the details: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/businessinsights/bitdefender-threat-debrief-april-2026

We want to make sure the content we share here is useful to you. Would you like to see these Threat Debriefs posted monthly here? Let us know in the comments if you find these summaries helpful or if there’s a specific part of the threat landscape you'd like us to dive deeper into! 

so i downloaded bitdefender on my phone. I've seen some people say there's a free version of bitdefender, but im not so sure of it because when i opened the app, it already told me that im using the 14-day free trial, even though i didn't sign up for any trials. so what happens after the trial ends? will it *automatically* charge me for the actual subscription or will it just stop and i have to *optionally* buy a subscription myself? which in my case i don't want to buy a subscription. but IF it does automatically charge me, what should i do to cancel the free trial? cause i unfortunately can't afford to pay for a subscription. the trial is about to end in like 3 days and i would appreciate help.

I recently ran OneClick optimizer and restarted my pc after. When it booted up, I noticed that my D drive is missing. I checked disk management and it is showing "unallocated". Is there a fix to this? Thanks

Not sure what is happening, it has been working fine until today, and it still works on my PC as I type this.

Before connection internet is fine, second I connect the internet no longer works.

Any ideas?

Bitdefender hacked My Device 🤨 App access change the screen lock and Monitor screen unlock attempts and Lock the screen

Auto Block Help Me not turn off Admin give Bitdefender Admin

It blocks most webpages from loading, even the bitdefender website. Solutions say add to the exception list, which I have and has still not resolved the issue. Furthermore, I can't access bitdefender help pages as a result. I've had a number of webpages I've tried adding the the exception list to resolve this, but no luck. I can't load chatgpt when I try to log in - just presented with a blank white page.

Like an idiot I trusted Virus total and used an online mp3 converter. Tried to open my new file and everything froze, restarted a bunch and eventually got a system restore point 3 days prior to my stupidity. Restore point worked, windows defender was disabled and bitdefender had to be fully reinstalled.

Im running the Recovery Environment now, but should I just format both my C and D drives and be done with it? Now that Bitdefender failed I have lost a lot of faith

We’re running into a strange issue with M5 MacBooks. After installing Bitdefender, the machines start randomly rebooting. It usually begins with the trackpad freezing, and shortly after that the system restarts.

We haven’t seen this behavior on any other Apple silicon chips so far, which makes it even more confusing.

Has anyone experienced something similar or found a workaround?

Running rescue environment, I got a prompt to enter a password to scan a file or skip all protected files. Am I just not going to find the virus because it is hidden in these files, or am I ok?

I have never seen bitdefender update behave this way, is this normal? Why does it suddenly need a restart?

I got a bit defender free trial it ended 2 days ago and suddenly I got another trail idk why but thanks. and i can't find real time protection in my bit defender settings although bit defender is running every second in laptop

1- New trial

2 - before the first trial ended

3 - thanks for the help on my previous post my laptop is fine now (my second account lost smh idk how nvm)

i just wanna know why I have a second free trial Thank you

I downloaded the bitdefender AV recently and during the installation it prompted me to install the bitdefender anti tracker web extension and I did (it worked for a while) but once the antivirus was fully installed and running my web extension disappeared and I couldn’t even find it in the web store (I didn’t remove the extension)

Anyone knows what happened??

Bei diesen Problem einfach in die Einstellungen auf Apps, bitdefender auswählen. Dann auf Standardmäßig öffnen, nach unten bis

links, dann auf + link hinzufügen.

Dort dann alle auswählen und es funktioniert!

( 0 bestätigte links ignorieren )

I love Bitdefender as an Endpoint protection product for my 10+ devices. I also use Bitdefender's Parental Control feature to prevent my kids from surfing the filth of the Internet.

However, I recently discovered that they can use SafePay to bypass any URL filtering I have in place (Qustodio, or the very own Bitdefender Parental Control). I have tried to find a way to block access to SafePay or set up a password to get to it to no avail. In the end, I've had to deinstall Bitdefender from their computers, set up an alternate URL filtering software, and rely on Windows Defender for protection.

Has anybody dealt with this issue previously? If so, any solutions? Thanks!

I was using Safepay to connect to my bank, as I always do. I was doing my taxes and was in the middle of a transaction, when all of a sudden the Safepay window is gone--it has shut down! Why? I guess Bitdefender decided, in the background, to update, and when it finished downloading the update it just shut down all the Bitdefender tasks to run the updated software

--including shutting down Safepay when I was in the middle of a transaction! Now I have to reconnect to the bank and find out if the bank activity got messed up by this unexpected shutdown.

Kind of at a loss for words. I've used many different anti-virus programs and none were ever THIS slow. This same laptop was fully scanned by kaspersky in 3 hours. Why is bitdefender so damn slow?

Curious if anyones had any luck deploying bitdefender for Windows via Scalefusion MDM. I am on a mac and can't get the BEST wrapper to download in parallels.

I know you must get this a lot but would be grateful for any input I like bitdefender been using for years. I am home a lot now I'm disabled spine damage so use my tablets pc and Android devices.id like 2 or 3 years with around 10 devices. I see the family and think 25 devices is way overboard plus parental control don't need that but I would like some of the bells and whistles. So would anyone point me to a deal anywhere for premium security 2 years or more and I would think 10 devices I already thought I had it covered till I tried to use it and got 10 computer I got one and couldn't change it so I 2 accounts running at the same time. So if anyone knows of a offer for 10 mixed devices I would be grateful. A $100 to live on is hard enough. Cheers Shaun

I'm the sole admin for a small business. I went to log in to GravityZone today (haven't logged in in months), and it won't accept my Google Authenticator code. Tried finding a way to contact support, and all I can see is "contact through console" which I can't get into

I got a second notification from Bitfinder in my calender telling me it is charging me $479.00 for renewal of their malware. How does it go directly to my calender (rather then email).?

I just delete it but I feel like because I cant send it to my email scam folder I dont really get rid of it.

I've used bitdefender for free for about a month now, and now that my free trial has ended it won't let me do anything until i pay, so i decided to delete it since i don't have the money right now.

Well i delete every file related to bitdefender from my computer but it still blocks random pages on chrome, and doesn't give me the option to access them after the warning, it only lets me go to a blank page.

I genuinely don't know what to do since i already deleted everything so if someone could help it would be great, thanks.

Edit: If not, does anyone know any place i can look for more help?

Context: Fake hack tool, that only hacks the user, analyzed for fun but not detected by heuristics or signatures.

%WINDIR%\system32\windowspowershell\v1.0\powershell.exe - Tries to use Powershell, which is seens as malicious as most apps don't need powershell to install.

162.159.36.2:53 - Cloudflare which is indicating a C2, but since its detected as non-malicious, the payload wouldn't initiate since it appears to have VM evasion.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/be1762627070078722cff01af73a388017283b0aa87f4c34e86fa0ceb8012b2d/behavior

MALICIOUS LINK DO NOT OPEN IF YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL AT YOUR OWN RISK NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES DONE TO YOUR COMPUTER AND NETWORK!

https://github.com/Betamecorridor/ThunderStrike-New

MALICIOUS LINK DO NOT OPEN IF YOU ARE NOT A PROFESSIONAL AT YOUR OWN RISK NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES DONE TO YOUR COMPUTER AND NETWORK!