Half of all Ransomware Attacks This Year Targeted Small Businesses

New data shows just how crippling ransomware has been on small businesses that have fallen victim to an attack and needed to pay the ransom.

Logic would normally dictate that ransomware gangs are going to go after the “big fishes” – the larger organizations with deep pockets.

But with the advent of the “as a service” model of ransomware, threat actors have found a niche, with many of them focusing on businesses with 1 to 50 employees.

According to Hornet Security’s Q3 2024 Ransomware Attacks Survey report, almost 56% of all the ransomware attacks impacted the small business. And small businesses aren’t prepared, as 1 in 5 paid the ransom to recover their data – that’s 22% higher than the average.

And what makes it even worse is the fact that 60% of the small business victims paid ransom amounts ranging between $10,000 and $100,000 – an extremely material amount of money for businesses with less than 50 employees.

So, if you’re in charge of cybersecurity at a small business, let’s run the numbers and figure out your odds based on the Hornet data.

You basically have a 1 in 8 chance of both being hit by ransomware and having to pay a hefty ransom. So, it makes sense that you need to invest in security awareness training to thwart off phishing attacks (the primary ransomware attack vector, according to Hornet’s data) and to keep the organization secure.

KnowBe4 empowers your workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Over 70,000 organizations worldwide trust the KnowBe4 platform to strengthen their security culture and reduce human risk.