Email security and cyber resilience company Mimecast Limited announced the results of its new survey with a report, « State of Ransomware Readiness: Facing the Reality Gap ». The results show the dramatic in rice ransomware attacks. Ransomware attacks target all organizations while large enterprises experience an average of 10,000 attacks in the last two years.
10,000 attacks in two years
Mimecast’s research is based on a survey that includes answers from 742 global cybersecurity professionals. According to the report:
- Respondents cited phishing emails with ransomware attachments (54%), web security (47%), and phishing emails leading to a drive-by download (45%) as primary sources of ransomware attacks.
- Only 45% reported they have file backups that would allow them to avoid having to pay the ransom, or to mitigate damage from an attack
- 45% would like the budget to fund more up-to-date data security systems
- 46% of executives want more frequent security awareness training for end-users
- 40% of respondents want greater sharing of threat data
The results also show that 80% of organizations have been targeted by ransomware attacks. These organizations experienced approximately 3,000 attacks during the last two years. According to the survey results, 77% of executives are confident in their preparedness against these kinds of attacks. Other findings are:
- 83% of executives believe they can get all their data back without paying the ransom
- Directly contradicts the fact that 39% of organizations paid the ransom
- 77% of executives believe they can bring their company back to a state of normalcy within two to five days
- 78% have received an incremental budget to help address the ransomware problem
- 60% of organizations train their employees to recognize email threats that could lead to an attack
Negotiating with the cybercriminals
41% of the executives who participated in the survey stated that they didn’t pay the ransom while 39% agreed to pay and 13% of executives negotiated their payments down.
- Australia – $59,066
- Canada – $5,347,508
- Germany – $197,727
- South Africa – $213,884
- United Kingdom – $848, 377
- United States – $6,312,190
Jonathan Miles, head of strategic intelligence & security research at Mimecast said,
« Ransomware attacks have never been more common, and threat actors are improving each day in terms of their sophistication and ease of deployment. Preparation is key in combating these attacks. It’s great to see cybersecurity leaders feel prepared, but they must continue to be proactive and work to improve processes. This report clearly shows ransomware attacks pay, which gives cybercriminals no incentive to slow down. »