Injurious to business operations, software infrastructures, privacy safety, and information security, ransomware attacks are becoming far more frequent. The number of ransomware attacks grew by 700% or more in 2020. This growth is forecasted to continue, with at least 3 out of 4 IT organizations being faced with at least 1 ransomware attack by 2025. The total global ransomware damage costs predicted for 2021 is $20 billion, but the true cost of ransomware attacks is much greater. Let’s examine ways of stopping ransomware below.

Counting the True Cost of Ransomware

Ceasing, and too often desisting, business operations, ransomware attacks cost businesses up to 23x more than the ransom itself. Enterprise size largely determines the costliness of ransomware attacks, with small to medium enterprises (SMEs) representing 98% of claims in 2019. Ransomware claims varied between $2,500 and $10.1M in 2019, with an average claim of $424,000. Business interruption loss is frequently neglected when tallying ransomware attack damages. That same year, the average cost of SMEs because of interruption was $1.2 million per ransomware attack, with the highest cost being $6.5 million.

Insurance premium increases, data loss, and heightened risk of reinfection are some of the heftiest post-attack costs. In the first quarter of 2021, premiums increased 29% in January, 32% in February, and 39% in March. For high-risk organizations, these premium increases reached as high as 50-60%. Deductibles were lifted to $1 million, on average, prompting more insurance clients to turn to cyber coverage, which has jumped from 26% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. Data loss is also financially depleting. On average, 61% of ransomware attack victims have lost data to corruption with 82% reporting significant data loss.  Another financial threat is reinfection rates. Transpiring 80% of the time, reinfection is worth protecting against, especially as 46% of victims believe it to be the same attackers. 

The ransomware group Avaddon made headlines in June of 2021 after calling it quits on their operation. The threat group had 88 known victims, but decryption keys were released for 2934 victims. If all the victims paid the average reported amount, the group made about $1.8 billion but the full extent of Avaddon’s schemes has yet to be uncovered. With just 3% of victims reporting Avaddon’s attacks, the true success of their ransomware-as-a-service operation remains an enigma.

How to Protect Your Business

Now is the time to protect your business from ransomware. The best ways to do so are to increase employee alertness, stay in the know,  invest in malware detection, and back up data. Increasing employee alertness entails teaching employees how to assess whether an attachment, link, or email is valid. Staying in the know is key to shielding yourself against ransomware and involves tracking patch and software updates. Early detection of suspicious activity is your first line of defense. The adoption of malware detection is a must. Last but not least, it’s critical to keep data backed up on external devices to aid recovery should there be an attack.

As ransomware attacks advance,  vulnerability is no longer a question of if but when. Be proactive and protect your business from the devastation bred by ransomware attacks. Learn more on stopping ransomware below: