With a new cyber attack in the news almost every day, Steve King of Cybered.io posted a recent survey of the effects of ransomware. Commissioned by Sophos, Vansom Bourne surveyed 5,400 IT decision makers in 30 countries. The findings:
- 37% of respondents were hit by ransomware last year.
- The average ransom was $170,000.
- Only 65% of data was restored after payment.
- Average cost to rectify an attack was $1.9 million - over 10 times the average ransom.
- Extortion-style attacks have more than doubled year over year - and it's getting worse.
- India, Australia and the United States are the most heavily targeted countries.
- Although half the respondents said the attacks were too "sophisticated" to stop, most resulted from password cracking, unpatched vulnerabilities, phishing and misconfigurations.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts ransomware will cost $20 billion this year, rising to $265 billion in 2031. By then there will be a new ransomware attack every two seconds. When the evening news leads with the latest attack, it will be followed by 900 others by the time it signs off.