Ransomware attacks are a growing and unwelcome phenomenon. The Colonial Pipeline incident in the US highlights the fact that because of IT's ubiquity, these attacks can target critical infrastructures as well. On the home front, City Power was targeted in 2019, and earlier this year, Virgin Active was the victim.
During the past 12 months, the average cost of remediating a ransomware attack in South Africa was estimated at $447 097 (R6.4 million), with the global average total cost of recovery from a ransomware attack revealed to have doubled in a year from $761 106 (R11 million) in 2020 to $1.85 million (R26.5 million) in 2021.
Here's the real kicker: just under half (42%) of ransomware victims in SA paid the ransom to restore access to their data last year. However, for 19% of those, coughing up did not see their stolen data being returned. This was one of the findings of a global report by Kaspersky, dubbed “Consumer appetite versus action: The state of data privacy amid growing digital dependency”, that surveyed 15 000 consumers.
Cue the music: this is the key point that I worry most businesses are not getting. We're getting to the point that a ransomware attack is something like a certainty and even by paying, you are far from guaranteed to get your data back.
So, yes, it's good to make sure you have good defences in place − especially against attacks that target specific high-risk individuals − you should also spend the same amount of time, energy and budget on ensuring you are able to recov ..
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