In a recent survey of 275 IT experts put out by Researchscape International, 65% of those interviewed believe hacking and privacy breaches are top customer security concerns of this year… As you’ve seen in recent news outlets and posts, the malicious malware, ransomware, is a growing concern among businesses and IT professionals.
Mentioned in current posts, organizations within the public sector like Michigan’s Board of Water & Light and Texas’ North East Independent School District experienced unsettling ransomware attacks in April. In reference to the Researchscape survey, IT experts reported the number of employees affected during an organization’s ransomware attack to be alarming. Nearly half (47%) reported 21+ employees within an organization were affected during an attack. In comparison, the infectious nature of ransomware limited its capability with only 1% reporting it affects 0 employees and 13% affecting as little as 1 employee. This study alone proves the importance of organizations making particular efforts to enhancing security to protect their company’s information.
In addition to those affected, the number of days the employees with the virus experienced lack of access to data were troublesome. On average, employees within the organization encountered 3 days of no data access, putting the organization as a whole to face cost-related impacts in addition to the expense of the ransomware attack alone, if paid.
Relating to the business impact on an organization during a ransomware attack, financial costs seem to be the most significant influence. Reported in the Researchscape survey, ransomware payment costs to cyber-criminals only possessed a business impact of 11%. The most significant cost organizations encountered were the data recovery efforts at 32%. Company morale, specifically traumatized employees, took the next biggest factor with 28% of a business impact. Outside of the organization, ransomware attacks often put a bad taste in the mouth among the public and its customers which amounts to a combined 42% of business impact. Lost sales were another factor in business influence. A small 11% of those IT experts interviewed reported no impact to the threat.
Conclusively, what can your organization do to protect the functionality of the business against the very threats faced on a day-to-day basis, if traditional security programs and methods have become obsolete? Tech Sentry.
