Ransomware is now the #1 cybersecurity threat, so we recently partnered with an independent research firm on a survey of 200 organizations that had been victims of a ransomware attack to learn about their experiences. You can read the survey report at 2021 Ransomware Victims Report | Cloudian, but here are three key lessons that emerged:
- Despite defensive measures, ransomware gets in – For example, 49% of survey respondents had perimeter defenses in place but were still penetrated.
- The impact is widespread – More than half of those surveyed said the attacks significantly impacted their financials, operations, employees, customers and reputation.
- The financial costs go beyond just ransom payments – For the 55% of respondents that chose to pay the ransom, the average payment was $223,000, but those organizations also spent an average of $183,000 more for other costs resulting from the attack.
All this highlights the need for organizations to focus greater attention on putting systems in place that enable quick data recovery in the event of an attack, without paying ransom. One of the best ways to do so is by having an immutable—i.e., unchangeable—data backup copy, which prevents cybercriminals from encrypting or deleting data for a specified period of time, thereby enabling organizations to recover an unencrypted copy of that data in the event of an attack. In fact, a recent Gartner report stated that “having an immutable copy of the backup is the most important item to start protecting backup data” from ransomware.
You can learn about Cloudian’s award-winning data immutability solution, S3 Object Lock, at Lock Ransomware Out – Keep Data Safe | Cloudian.