Ransomware doesn’t stop: 85% of companies were attacked in 2022

It is known that hacker attacks on businesses, governments and even hospitals are becoming more and more common. The consequences are disruption of services, loss of databases and even the leakage of sensitive data such as credit card numbers and personal customer information. The novelty is that the problem now has concrete numbers.

According to a study released on Tuesday, 85% of companies have been attacked at least once in the last 12 months; a 76% increase over last year’s report.

The report, conducted from a survey of 4,200 businesses in 28 countries and published by data protection and recovery firm Veeam, says ransomware is the most common cause of attacks. Ransomware is a program that prevents users from accessing their system or personal files and demands payment of a ransom be able to access it again

Data recovery and rapid return to service are a top concern, with organizations reporting that only 55% of their encrypted or destroyed data could be recovered from attacks.

As a result, data protection budgets are increasing: globally, organizations plan to increase their data protection budget by 6.5% in 2023 which is significantly higher than the general plans in other technology areas. “Of the 85% of organizations planning to increase their data protection budgets, their average planned increase is 8.3% and often in conjunction with increased investments in cybersecurity tools,” the survey specifies.

“IT leaders face a double challenge. They are building and supporting increasingly complex hybrid environments as the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks grow,” said Danny Allan, CTO and SVP Product Strategy at Veeam.

“Due to the strain on budget and manpower, ransomware and the current unstable cybersecurity landscape take precedence for IT teams. This is causing IT resources and budgets originally allocated to digital transformation initiatives to Cyberattacks not only drain operational budgets from rescues to recovery efforts, but also reduce the ability of businesses to modernize,” the report continues.

57% of organizations plan to change their primary data protection by 2023, as well as the motivation to increase data protection budgets.

They ask not to pay the ransom

According to specialists, simply increasing the protection of companies will not be enough to stop online attacks by criminals. Also, call not to pay the amount of money hackers ask for when they get hold of information via ransomware.

“Ransomware has democratized data theft and made cybercrime a growing and lucrative industry like never before. While it is not the responsibility of companies to actively address or fix this problem at its source, they do have a duty to take care for other organizations and critical infrastructure around the world to not fuel the fire,” Edwin Weijdema, Global Technologist, Veeam.

Of the companies interviewed, 11% are small and medium-sized enterprises (from 100 to 499 employees), 11% are commercial organizations (from 500 to 999), 36% are small companies (from 1,000 to 2,499), 24 % fall into the Business category (2,500 to 4,999) and 18% are large companies (5,000 or more employees).