Sophos, the world’s leading cyber security firm, has recently released its annual report. The State of Ransomware 2023 report found that the rate of ransomware attacks in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) has decreased slightly over the past year.
According to the latest survey, 68 percent of organizations became victim to ransomware, up from 72 percent the previous year. Of the 71 percent of organizations exposed to ransomware surveyed, 49 percent paid a ransom to encrypt information or data, which is slightly lower than last year’s rate of 55 percent, but higher than the 2023 global average of 47 percent.
Global research reveals that when organizations pay a ransom to decrypt their data, their costs double. While backups cost $375,000 to protect an organization’s data, data recovery alone costs $750,000. Even after paying the ransom, it takes relatively long time to recover the data. 45 percent of organizations that backed up recovered their data within a week. On the other hand, 39 percent of organizations that paid the ransom required more time.
After analysis, the main causes of ransomware attacks for APJ organizations are attacks on vulnerable systems (in 37 percent cases), and compromised credentials (in 28 percent cases). These aspects of the attack are highlighted in the incident response section of Sophos’ “2023 Active Adversary Report for Business Leaders.”
46 percent of organizations surveyed encrypt their information or data by paying a ransom. However, in the case of large institutions, the tendency to pay such money is more. Typically businesses with revenues of $5 million or more pay higher ransoms. According to the report, organizations with revenues above $5 billion have the highest rates of ransom payments. One of the reasons for this could be the cyber insurance policies of big companies – which help them with money.