A majority of Australian companies pay ransoms in ransomware attacks. 79 percent want to meet the demands of cybercriminals, as a survey by security service provider McGrathNicol Advisory and researcher YouGov among managers of 500 companies with more than 50 employees shows.

Many were already victims

69 percent of companies have experienced a ransomware attack in the past five years. The average ransom paid was the equivalent of one million dollars. The average amount that companies would be willing to pay is even higher at almost $1.3 million and has more than doubled compared to 2021 ($680,000). This shows that companies are much better at anticipating the financial impact of a cyber attack than they were twelve months ago.

44 percent of the companies attacked paid the ransom within 24 hours (up from 23 percent in 2021). Of the paying CEOs, 59 percent chose to negotiate with the cyber thugs to reduce financial and operational damage, compared to 74 percent last year. Almost 75 percent of all ransomware attacks are due to human error. The remaining 25 percent have to do with exploiting vulnerabilities and malicious access. Almost one in five bosses knows that ransom money finances criminal organizations.

Contradictory statements

78 percent of executives believe their companies are “well prepared” to respond to cyber attacks. 51 percent even feel “very well prepared”. However, this contradicts other results of the survey. 13 percent believe it took them two days or longer to notify all relevant stakeholders of an attack, while 28 percent are unsure whether an attack is even reported to everyone involved. One in five large companies with more than 1,000 employees admit that they did not report such an attack to everyone involved.

source

Press release

Also read: Warning: The ransom Trojan is back!


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