Every second IT firm fell victim to ransomware in 2022 despite tall claims: Report

About 50 per cent organisations fell victim to ransomware attacks in 2022, despite majority firms claimed that they were prepared to mitigate any attack, said a new report.

The latest Global Ransomware Report by cybersecurity firm Fortinet has revealed that, despite 78% of firms believing they were "very" or "extremely" prepared to counter ransomware attacks, about half of all organizations globally fell prey to such attacks in 2022.

This survey of 569 cybersecurity leaders from 31 locations worldwide demonstrated that the threat of ransomware remains at peak levels, affecting businesses of all sizes and sectors. Although most organizations detected attacks early, four out of the five top challenges to preventing ransomware were people or process related.

The report also highlighted that almost three-quarters of the organizations paid some form of ransom despite detecting the incident within hours or even minutes. The report calls for an urgent need to move beyond detection and focus on real-time response while implementing robust cybersecurity measures, including Secure Email Gateway and Network Segmentation.

Additionally, integrated solutions or a platform were viewed as essential by 99% of the respondents for preventing ransomware attacks.

According to the 2023 Global Ransomware Report by cybersecurity firm Fortinet, the global threat of ransomware remains at peak levels, with half of the organisations across all sizes, regions and industries falling victim in the last year.  The survey was conducted among others in  the US, UK, France, India, and Japan, among others.

"According to the Fortinet research released today, though three out of four organisations detected ransomware attacks early, half still fell victim to them. These results demonstrate the urgency to move beyond simple detection to real-time response. However, this is only part of the solution as organisations cited the top challenges in preventing attacks were related to their people and processes," said Vishak Raman, Vice President of Sales, India, SAARC and Southeast Asia at Fortinet.

Moreover, the report said that four out of the five top challenges to stopping ransomware were people or process related.

Despite most (72 per cent) detecting an incident within hours, and sometimes minutes, the percentage of organisations paying ransom remains high, with almost three-quarters of the respondents making some form of ransom payment.

Specifically, one-quarter of attacks among manufacturing organisations received a ransom of $1m or higher, while almost all organisations (88 per cent) reported having cyber insurance, almost 40 per cent didn't receive as much coverage as expected and, in some cases, didn't receive any because of an exception from the insurer.

While ransomware concerns are high, nearly all organisations (91 per cent) expect to boost their security budgets in the following year, despite challenging economic conditions, the report said.

Email Phishing 

Since email phishing remained the most common method while it was encouraging to see respondents give higher importance to Secure Email Gateway (51 per cent) but, Sandboxing (23 per cent), Network Segmentation (20 per cent), and other important protections remained low on the list.

In addition, the report found that organisations using point products were the most likely to fall victim and almost all respondents (99 per cent) viewed integrated solutions or a platform as essential to preventing ransomware attacks.