Intelligent CISO Issue 26 | Page 18

cyber trends A NEW GLOBAL SURVEY REVEALS THAT MORE THAN HALF OF ORGANISATIONS QUESTIONED HAD EXPERIENCED A SIGNIFICANT RANSOMWARE ATTACK IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS. ophos, a global S leader in nextgeneration cybersecurity, has announced the findings of its global survey, The State of Ransomware 2020, which reveals that paying cybercriminals to restore data encrypted during a ransomware attack is not an easy and inexpensive path to recovery. In fact, the total cost of recovery almost doubles when organisations pay a ransom. The survey polled 5,000 IT decision-makers in organisations in 26 countries across six continents, including Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. More than half (51%) of organisations had experienced a significant ransomware attack in the previous 12 months, compared to 54% in 2017. In the UAE, 49% of the organisations 49% of organisations in the UAE witnessed a significant ransomware attack in the last 12 months, according to Sophos surveyed mentioned a ransomware attack in the last year. Globally, data was encrypted in nearly three-quarters (73%) of attacks that successfully breached an organisation, while in the UAE, it was 78%. The average cost of addressing the impact of such an attack, including business downtime, lost orders, operational costs and more, but not including the ransom, was more than US$730,000. This average cost rose to US$1.4 million, almost twice as much, when organisations paid the ransom. More than one-quarter (27%) of organisations hit by ransomware admitted paying the ransom. The survey also revealed 19% of the organisations that were attacked in the UAE admitted to paying the ransom. “Organisations may feel intense pressure to pay the ransom to avoid damaging downtime. On the face of it, paying the ransom appears to be an effective way of getting data restored, but this is illusory. Sophos’ findings show that 18 Issue 26 | www.intelligentciso.com