The current cybersecurity landscape depicts that the scourge of ransomware attacks is not leaving businesses, anytime soon. Be it big and more prominent businesses or small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), ransomware spares no one.
Some recent statistics paint an oversimplified and even optimistic picture regarding the number of ransomware attacks. However, the reality is a lot bleaker than that. Read on to know more about statistics and trends related to ransomware.
Ransomware Attacks Statistics Depicting a Decline, While Cost Remains High
According to the 2022 Delinea State of Ransomware Survey Report, there has been a drop in number of ransomware attacks. The survey included 300 top IT security leaders from various industries across the US. The report revealed that in the year 2021, 64% of the surveyed enterprises fell prey to ransomware attacks. Surprisingly in 2022, this number plummeted to 25% for businesses from across various industries. The report also pointed out that organizations having less than 100 employees saw an additional 7% reduction in ransomware attacks.
From the aforementioned statistics, can we say that ransomware attacks are finally on the wane? Or do these statistics call for a celebration? A short answer to these questions is no.
A detailed answer would require us to “dig deep” and find out factors that have resulted in plunges in the ransomware attack numbers. One very common factor is that businesses are reluctant to officially report these attacks due to expensive insurance claims. Even though the number has dropped, but not to an extent that businesses start taking it lightly.
We say that because 94% of the enterprises had a proactive ransomware incident response plan to ensure fast Business Continuity (BC), in 2021. In the year 2022, this number deceased to 71%. Similarly, the number of enterprises allocating a separate budget dedicated to ransomware attacks, decreased from 93% in 2021 to 68% in 2022. The Delinea’s survey further indicated that the remediation and insurance costs related to ransomware attacks continue to grow. Therefore, enterprises must take appropriate preventative measures, or else be prepared to face devastating blows of such malicious attacks.
Preventative Measures to Mitigate Ransomware Attacks
The Delinea report suggests many enterprises are adopting a more relaxed approach towards ransomware attacks and bad actors might take advantage of this situation. That said, the most popular and effective remediation actions adopted by enterprises against ransomware attacks are mentioned below.
· Regular backups to for Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR).
· Constant software updates and patch management.
· Adoption of strong password policies.
· Implementation of robust security measures, such as Multi Factor Authentication (MFA), principle of least privilege and zero trust architectures.
The next wave of catastrophic ransomware attacks might be on the horizon. Instead of snoozing on security measures, enterprises must adopt an even more aggressive cybersecurity defense against the menace of ransomware.
