Sophos revealed that paying the ransom of cybercriminals doubles the price of recovery according to the results of their global survey, The State of Ransomware 2020.
SophosLabs, Sophos’ research team, collects and analyzes data on cybercrime to better protect their clients. This recent report is on ransomware. A ransomware is a cyber attack with a software that blocks computer systems’ access until owners pay a ransom. “The State of Ransomware” consolidates the answers 5,000 IT decision makers in organizations in 26 countries across six continents.
Here are the highlights of the report:
On a local scale, one in three (30%) organizations in the Philippines had a ransomware attack in previous year. Nearly three quarters (73%) of successful attacks had their data encrypted globally.
On average, the global cost of full recovery without including the ransom, was approximately PHP36,500,000 (US730,000). This average cost had apparently doubled to PHP70,000,000 (US$1.4 million) when organizations paid the ransom. Over one quarter (27%) of all organizations, globally, admittedly paid the ransom.
Also Read: Sophos Reports Boost in COVID-19 Cyber Scams
Positively, more than half (56%) of IT managers surveyed said they were able to recover their data from backups without paying. Unluckily, there were also a few cases (1%) that paid the ransom but were not able to recover their data.
For 5% of public sector organizations, paying the ransom did not lead to the recovery of data (globally). Sophos also found a relatively significant percentage (13%) of public sector organizations unable to restore their encrypted data. Globally, it’s 6% for all organizations, which makes the disparity look big. However, even so, public sector organizations are still comparatively luckier than others.
Less than half (45%) of public sector organizations surveyed said they were hit by a significant attack in the previous year. Worldwide, Sophos found out that media, leisure and entertainment businesses in the private sector were hit the hardest with 60% of respondents reporting attacks.
Moving forward, SophosLabs researchers have published a new report, Maze Ransomware: Extorting Victims for 1 Year and Counting. The report looks deep into techniques used by this advanced attack. Ransomware, aside from data encryption, holds leverage over data theft as well as exposure. This approach increases pressure on victims to pay the ransom. Sophos researchers have observed this practice adopted by other ransomware families such as LockBit.
Learn more on SophosLabs Uncut, Naked Security and Sophos The State of Ransomware 2020.
