The Cost of Ransoms Demanded and Paid Double in 2020!

According to new data from UK cyber insurer Beazley shows ransomware claims have increased materially and calls for organizations to employ a layered cyber defense.

Take it from the folks that are up close and intimate with aftermath of many, many ransomware attacks – ransomware isn’t a war you want to fight. Beazley doesn’t just underwrite cyber insurance policies; their Breach Response (BBR) Services helps their clients to respond to ransomware attacks, engaging legal counsel, forensics, and even ransom negotiators.

According to Beazley, both the extortion demand amounts and total cost of ransomware payments have increased an average of 100%, also citing “a rise in {attack] severity as incidents reported are more complex.”

This comes at a time when both cyberinsurance premiums and the number of policies are increasing annually by 50%, according to cyberinsurer Aon. This is a 67% increase over previous years all the way back to 2012; in this timeframe, the average uplift in policy premiums and count only rose an average of 30% per year. Projected by Aon to be a $20 Billion industry by 2025, cyberinsurance is a necessity for nearly every organization today.

According to Beazley, a number of best practice steps exist to better protect against ransomware that include:

• Proper backups of key systems and data – follow the 3-2-1 backup rule (3 copies, 2 mediums, 1 copy in the cloud) to ensure you have an ability to recover.
• Email filtering – scanning of email for malicious content can significantly reduce the number of phishing emails that reach a user’s Inbox.
• User Education – As Beazley says “most attacks rely on users making mistakes.” Putting users through Security Awareness Training is the key to stopping an attack that makes its way past a wealth of security solutions down to your user’s Inbox by training users not to fall for social engineering tactics.