Secret Ransomware Payments Rife: Survey

Pervasive cyberattacks are leading most companies to pay ransoms and break their “Do Not Pay” policies, according to recent research.

A poll of IT and security decision-makers conducted by Cohesity found that that most companies have paid a ransom in the last two years. In fact, 79% of respondents said their company had been the victim of a ransomware attack during the second half of 2023.

The breadth of an organisation’s “attack surfaces” depends on the size and scope of its data environments. However, 78% of respondents said their data security risk had increased faster than the growth in the data they manage. They also said their organisation’s cyber resilience and data security strategies had not kept pace with emerging threats – only 21% had full confidence in their company’s cyber resilience strategy.

Slow Recovery, Lack of Testing

Cyber resilience is a critical element of business continuity, and encompasses a company’s ability to recover their data and restore business processes when they suffer a cyberattack or IT outage.  Key insights from the survey on this point included:

• All respondents said they need more than 24 hours to recover data and restore business processes.

• Only 7% said their company could recover data and restore business processes within 1-3 days.

• 35% said they could recover and restore in 4 to 6 days, while 34% need 1-2 weeks, and 23% need more than 3 weeks.

• Only 12% of those surveyed said their company had stress-tested their data security, data management, and data recovery processes or solutions in the six months prior to being surveyed.  46% hadn’t tested in more than 12 months.

Secret Ransom Payments

While 84% had a “do not pay” policy, Cohesity reported that 94% of respondents divulged that their company would pay a ransom to recover data and restore business processes.  5% said “maybe, depending on the ransom amount”.

Two thirds said their company would be willing to pay over US$3M to recover data and restore business processes, and a third said their company would be willing to pay over $5M.

Don’t Pay: Prevent!

The volume, frequency, and sophistication of ransomware attacks will only increase.  And paying ransoms only encourages cyberthieves to escalate their efforts. 

Worse, if ransoms are seen as “easy money”, new miscreants will be tempted to acquire ransomware tools from the dark web and join the cyber crimewave.

Rather than investing in ransoms, organisations need to invest in their cyber resilience. That starts with keeping thieves at bay - protecting valuable data where it is stored, and when it is transferred – and building organisational capability in rapidly responding to and recovering from cyberattacks.

Building cyber resilience need not be a drag on an organisation’s efficiency. Automation can ensure data is protected at rest and in motion, requiring little to no manual management.

For example, Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions such as the class-leading GoAnywhere MFT encrypt data at rest and in transit, complying with the highest data security standards (including the US’s and Europe’s HIPAA, HITECH, PCI DSS, SOX, and GDPR).

MFT manages inbound and outbound file transfers across an organisation, using industry-standard file transfer protocols such as SFTP, FTPS, and AS2 to send files securely, and encryption standards such as Open PGP and AES to protect data in transit and at rest.

Advanced Threat Protection and Adaptive Loss Prevention add a further layer of defence.

SFT Threat Protection enables safe collaboration with external parties, preventing malware from entering your organisation, and reducing opportunities for employees to lose or mishandle sensitive data.

Local Expertise Ready to Help

Generic Systems Australia are your local experts in Managed File Transfer and Advanced Threat Protection.  We’ve assisted hundreds of organisations across the Asia-Pacific region to secure their data, keep cybercriminals at bay… and keep ransomware off the books.

If you’d like to discuss improving your cybersecurity, please feel welcome to contact me, Bradley Copson. I’m always happy to have an obligation-free discussion, explain how simply we can transition you from outdated software and approaches, and offer you a zero-cost Proof of Concept.

About the survey:

Cohesity’s findings are based on a survey of 902 IT and Security decision-makers (split as close to 50:50 as possible) commissioned by Cohesity and conducted by Censuswide. Survey respondents were polled from businesses in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The top five industries selected by respondents as best representing the industry their company operates in were: IT & Telecommunications, Finance, Healthcare, Finance, HR, and Manufacturing & Utilities.