The Hidden Costs Of Ransomware

Key Findings of ransomware demands

• 50% of ransomware demands were more than $50k
• 40% of ransomware attacks consumed 8 or more manhours of work
• 46% of businesses said their clients were also impacted by the attack
• 38% of businesses said the attack harmed their brand or reputation
• 45% were ransomware victims in both their business and personal lives
• 50% of victims were deceived by a malicious website email link or attachment
• 45% of victims were unaware of the infection for more than 24 hours
• 17% of victims were unable to recover their data, even after paying the ransom

Signs pointing to a decline in ransomware are no cause for celebration. Webroot’s 2021 Threat Report gleaned from our BrightCloud Threat Intelligence service reveals that attacks are declining but only because ransomware has become more targeted, better implemented, and much more ruthless, with criminals specifically targeting higher value and weaker targets.

Businesses have become preferred targets because they can and will pay more to get their data back.

Although some businesses partially follow cybersecurity best practices, gaps in security exist because the threat surface area is so large and because cyber thieves are so good at exploiting the gaps.