The ransomware attacks are becoming a common phenomenon and has been infecting businesses and governments globally. The conventional defenses are not enough according to the security experts. The current state of ransomware attacks has been depicted by the report by Cloudian.
The report gives the following statistic-
- A large number of attacks, around 24%, start with phishing attacks. Also 41% percent among them are for small organizations with less than 500 staff.
- Almost 49% of the cases, successful attacks has caused the organization to set up perimeter defense.
- Public cloud is the most common entry points for these kinds of attack.
- Most of the cases take control of the data within 12 hours while some may take even 24 hours.
How much do these attacks cost?
- The average cost of ransomware attack is around $400,000.
- Even after paying ransom, there is no guarantee that the organization will get back their data as it was. Only around 57% of the user are able to get back the data.
The Impact of these Attacks-
Ransomware attacks are not only linked with financial losses, they also damage the reputation of the company, the customer’s privacy and also the normal operations of the company. The recent trends in the attacks gives a demonstration to the fact that prevalent conventional methods to stop ransomware from successful attacks are not enough.
Conclusion-
The step that organizations can take is that they should have immutable data backup. These kind of backups ensure that the organization does not have to pay the ransom amount to recover the unencrypted data. Organizations must recognize ransomware as a real threat and it can happen to them any time. So they must take comprehensive and appropriate steps to ensure security from these threats.