5 ransomware statistics you should know about in 2021
Ransomware is nothing new. The first recorded example was in the late 1980s and the first targets of a ransomware attack were healthcare professionals. Three decades ago, Dr. Joseph Popp, an active AIDS researcher at the time, devised a plan to give out 20,000 floppy disks to his fellow AIDS researchers across 90 countries. He told them the disks contained a programme that could assess a person’s risk of contracting AIDS in the form of a questionnaire. But they didn’t have any idea they were infected with malicious software. They were the first victims of what would later become known as the AIDS Trojan. According to ransomware statistics, 24% of data breaches today occur in the healthcare sector.
In the last three years there's been a real explosion in growth of ransomware attacks. A recent spate of well-publicised ransomware attacks has crippled critical American infrastructure and disrupted major food supply chains. This surge in attacks could be due to a whole raft of factors from the rise in hard-to-trace cryptocurrency to the working from home boom that has resulted in new IT vulnerabilities. One thing is for sure, no firm large or small is safe from ransomware attacks.
Attacks nowadays are more elaborate, targeted, advanced, and broader. Consequently, the impact is also more detrimental. We’ve compiled five interesting ransomware statistics for the current climate.
The average ransomware payment rose 33% in 2020
According to Fintech News the average ransomware payment in 2020 was $111,605, a rise of 33% over 2019.
The average cost of remediating a ransomware attack is a staggering $732,520
In 2020, Sophos conducted a survey among 5,000 IT managers across six continents. Organisations that decided not to pay the ransom after an attack spent around $732,520 to recover their systems. Businesses that pay lose twice the amount due to all the additional costs, totalling close to $1.45 million.
Ransomware is more dominant in countries with higher numbers of internet-connected populations
According to research by Symantec, the US has the highest amount of ransomware attacks in the world with 18.2% of all ransomware attacks affecting businesses there.
More than 4,000 ransomware attacks daily
According the the Federal Bureau of Investigation, In the four years since January 2016, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks have been carried out daily, according its 2020 statistics. The most common targets include private businesses, home users, and even government networks.
The average downtime due to a ransomware attack is 19 days
According to Coveware’s ransomware attack statistics, it’s not just the average ransom payment that increased over the past year, the average downtime caused by the attacks also saw a significant rise. In the third quarter of 2020, the downtime was 19 days, up 19.2% from 16 days in the second quarter.
