Only 11% of companies experienced no cyberattack in 2022

Only 11% of companies in Latin America experienced no ransomware attacks by cybercriminals in 2022. The data comes from a global survey of 4,200 companies, which included companies from the region, including Argentina.

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.

The report, released by digital security solutions firm Veeam, adds that 15% of businesses in the region have been attacked with this type of program at least once. 52% suffered 2 or 3 attacksand 18% received 4 or more hits.

If we compare the data with the rest of the continents, we hypothesize a real dimension of the problem: together with North America, Latin America is the most attacked region of the world, in both places only 11% of companies have not suffered attacks . In Europe, 16% of businesses were safe, in the Middle East 14% and in Asia Pacific 18%.

The global number indicates that 85% of businesses were attacked at least once in 2022.

data recovery

Data recovery and quick return to service is a top concern as reported by organizations only 55% of its encrypted or destroyed data could be recovered from the 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 overall spending plans in other technological 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.

Between ransomware concerns, pressures to secure technology services, and the challenges of securing modern workloads, one might assume that many organizations are likely to change backup solutions to accommodate these pressures and changing conditions.

According to the study, only 8% of organizations said they are unlikely to change their primary backup solution in 2023. Meanwhile, 57% of respondents said backup solutions are likely to change, or will definitely change.

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, they call not to pay the amount of money that hackers ask when they manage to 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.