Nearly 47% of EMA Survey Respondents Indicated That Their Organization has Experienced a Ransomware Attack

Research finds that defense strategies play a more important role in timely detection and response than ransomware defense

BOULDER, Colo., June 28, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Enterprise Management Associates (EMA™), a leading IT and data management research and consulting firm, today announced the release of a new research report titled "Ransomware: How Increasing Attacks are Changing the Enterprise's Security Priorities and Spending," authored by Christopher Steffen, CISSP, CISA, managing research director of security and risk management at EMA, and Ken Buckler, CASP, research analyst of security and risk management at EMA. The research examines the impacts of ransomware and the effectiveness of defense and recovery strategies.

Today, ransomware is one of the fastest-growing threats in the cybersecurity industry, designed to not only self-propagate, but encrypt all files or entire systems across a network. This specialized malware has one primary purpose – to directly generate income for the attackers. Almost half (46.9%) of individuals polled for this research indicated that their organization has experienced a ransomware attack, and of those attacked, approximately one-third (32%) of organizations paid the ransom.

"With approximately one-third of ransomware victims paying the ransom and most organizations justifying paying the ransom because it was cheaper than other available remediation methods, the cybersecurity industry must work together to lower remediation costs and reduce downtime due to ransomware attacks," said Buckler. "Ransomware is a profit-driven, multi-million-dollar criminal industry. Paying the ransom encourages organized cyber-criminals to continue their relentless assault, and only when it becomes no longer profitable to create and distribute ransomware will we see this threat subside."

Based on 213 survey responses from organizations of 250 employees or more from over 20 different industry verticals, some of the research findings include:

• 95.3% of organizations believe that the industry needs better ransomware prevention technology
• 47% of organizations say the information technology department controls the security budget, but the information security department sets security priorities.
• 86% of organizations that have invested in cyber-insurance have seen at least a slight increase in premiums, with 42.9% seeing at least a 10% increase in premiums

One of the most remarkable trends discovered during this research is that ransomware defense strategy appears to play a minimal part in an organization becoming the victim of a ransomware attack. Instead, defense strategies play a more important role in timely detection and response. Since more users or devices affected play a direct role in the odds that an organization will need to pay the ransom, timely detection and response are critical. Backup of data or full system backups also play a significant role in the ability of organizations to quickly recover and avoid paying the ransom.

It seems that the best solution to the ransomware problem is strengthening backup strategies while improving detection and response times. EDR/XDR appear to provide a competitive edge in detection, response, and recovery times and needs to be more widely adopted for early detection and network traversal mitigation. Currently, one of the primary motivators in paying the ransom is reduced recovery costs. Only once organizations can recover at a lower cost than paying the ransom will ransomware authors no longer be motivated to continue their attacks.

Ultimately, ransomware does not appear to be going away any time soon. Only through proper planning and investments can organizations help reduce their risk, improve response and recovery times, and avoid the cost of paying the ransom.

This independent security research report was sponsored by SentinelOne and VMware.

A detailed analysis of the research findings is available in the report, "Ransomware: How Increasing Attacks are Changing the Enterprise's Security Priorities and Spending."

About EMA
Founded in 1996, EMA is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help their clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services for enterprise line of business users, IT professionals, and IT vendors at https://www.enterprisemanagement.com

Media Contact

Raleigh Gould, Enterprise Management Associates, 303-543-9500, [email protected]

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SOURCE Enterprise Management Associates