N has found that malware , ransomware and phishing continues to plague global organisations . In fact , one in five ( 21 %) have experienced a ransomware attack in the last year , with 43 % of those experiencing a significant impact on operations .

One in five businesses have paid or would pay a ransom for their data

ew research from Thales

N has found that malware , ransomware and phishing continues to plague global organisations . In fact , one in five ( 21 %) have experienced a ransomware attack in the last year , with 43 % of those experiencing a significant impact on operations .

First seen in the late 1980s , with the PC Cyborg Virus , the frequency and impact of ransomware attacks have now accelerated , due to the rise of cryptocurrency as the preferred ransomware payment method . In fact , the 2022 Thales Data Threat Report – conducted by 451 Research , part of S & P Global Market Intelligence , including more than 2,700 IT decisionmakers worldwide – found a fifth ( 22 %) of organisations have admitted that they have paid or would pay a ransom for their data . Despite this , 41 % of respondents said they had no plans to change security spending , even with greater ransomware impacts .

Additionally , less than half of respondents ( 48 %) have implemented a formal ransomware plan . Healthcare was the most prepared at 57 % with a formal ransomware plan ; energy was the least at 44 %. Despite both sectors experiencing significant breaches over the past 12 months . confident or had complete knowledge of where their data was being stored – down from 64 % the previous year – and only a quarter ( 25 %) stated they were able to classify all their data .

Threats and compliance challenges

Throughout 2021 , security incidents remained high , with almost a third ( 29 %) of businesses experiencing a breach in the past 12 months . Additionally , almost half ( 43 %) of IT leaders admitted to having failed a compliance audit .

Globally , IT leaders ranked malware ( 56 %), ransomware ( 53 %) and phishing ( 40 %) as the leading source of security attacks . Managing these risks is an ongoing challenge , with almost half ( 45 %) of IT leaders reporting an increase in the volume , severity and / or scope of cyberattacks in the past 12 months .

The cloud is increasing complexity and risk

Cloud adoption is increasing with more than a third ( 34 %) of respondents saying they used more than 50 Software-asa-Service ( SaaS ) apps and 16 % used more than 100 apps . However , 51 % of IT leaders agreed that it is more complex to manage privacy and data protection regulations in a cloud environment than in on-premises networks within their organisation , up from 46 % last year .

The 2022 Data Threat Report also revealed significant momentum amongst businesses to store data in the cloud , with 32 % of respondents stating that around half of their workloads and data resides in external clouds and a quarter ( 23 %) reporting more than 60 %. However , 44 % reported that they had experienced a breach or failed an audit in their cloud environments . u

Data visibility is a challenge

As more companies adopt multicloud strategies and hybrid work remains the norm , IT leaders continue to be challenged by the sprawl of data across their organisations and find it more difficult to locate all of their data . Just over half ( 56 %) of IT leaders were very intelligent DATA SECURITY www . intelligentciso . com

Intelligent CISO Issue 50 | Page 57

N has found that malware , ransomware and phishing continues to plague global organisations . In fact , one in five ( 21 %) have experienced a ransomware attack in the last year , with 43 % of those experiencing a significant impact on operations .

One in five businesses have paid or would pay a ransom for their data

N has found that malware , ransomware and phishing continues to plague global organisations . In fact , one in five ( 21 %) have experienced a ransomware attack in the last year , with 43 % of those experiencing a significant impact on operations .