Attack of ransomware or data piracy is growing in 2021 and more and more companies are paying to recover confidential information from these hacks.

The information was provided by 2022 Ransomware Statusa study published by the cybersecurity firm Sophos.

The state of ransomware in 2022

The study was conducted thanks to a survey of more than 5,600 information technology professionals in 31 countries.

According to the data, the attack from ransomware organizations increased to 66%, a 29% increase compared to the 2020 attack rate. Organizations in Austria, Australia, Malaysia, India, and the Czech Republic experienced the highest average percentage of attacks, while organizations in South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and the US experienced the lowest average attack percentage.

Sophos shows that cybercrime operations are becoming more professional: they are successful in encrypting data in 65% of all attacks, an 11% increase from the 2020 success rate. The data, but using it for extortion, has fallen from 7% to 4% in 2020 , and threats of data breaches are used to achieve payments.

99% of organizations can recover “some encrypted data”, usually through the use of backups (73%).

Organizations that paid the ransom, 46% according to Sophos, recovered 61% of their data on average. Only 4% of organizations get all their data back after paying the ransom.

In 2021, the average ransom payment will increase by a factor of 4.8 according to the study. The median ransom payout was $812,360 in 2021, compared to $170,000 in 2020. Ransom payments of $1 million and up increased by a factor of 3 in 2021, while payments of $10,000 and down fell by 34% to 21% in 2020.

Japan was the country that paid the most ransoms, followed by the Netherlands and the Philippines.

Operational impact of attacks from ransomware significant, because 90% of organizations say that hacking attacks ransomware affect their ability to operate. 86% reported that the attack resulted in loss of business or revenue.

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