Ransomware attacks are as pervasive as ever, with new data demonstrating just how impactful the attacks really are.
If you’re one of the lucky few organizations that hasn’t fallen victim to a ransomware attack, consider yourself lucky. According to the 2023 Ransomware Trends Report from backup vendor Veeam, the vast majority of organizations (85%) have experienced a ransomware attack.
And while that number is pretty shocking, that’s not the worst of it. According to the report, the impact felt in the aftermath is material and costly:
- 45% of production data was affected by a cyber attack
- On average, 15% of the organization's production data was unrecoverable
- 46% of organizations took two weeks or more (as much as four months) to completely recover from the event, with the average being three weeks
And despite all this, 56% of organizations run the risk of reinfecting their production environment during restoration because they have no means to ensure they’re using clean data during the recovery. This fact alone clearly puts the complete prevention of ransomware attacks as the highest priority (with detection, response, and remediation still remaining important, of course).
So, if you’re going to attempt to stop ransomware attacks, you must have a preventative strategy that aligns with the ways these attacks start. According to ransomware response vendor, Coveware, email-based phishing remains the top initial attack vector, making it imperative that your cybersecurity strategy include a layered approach (that includes Security Awareness Training) to ensure the success rate of email-based attacks is as close to zero as possible.
