Researchscape surveyed 275 IT experts in the month of January and the results are surprising…
Over half of those surveyed, did not identify ransomware as a top security threat.
Yet, 65% of those surveyed reported having a moderate to extreme concern regarding ransomware affecting their customers.
Perhaps, had they known that ransomware was going to explode the way it has, they would’ve placed more emphasis on it. But they did not. In fact, 92% of the IT experts underestimated the impact ransomware was going to have in 2016.
Below is a graph from Proofpoint regarding the significant increase in ransomware variants from the end of 2015 to the end of March, 2016. Although very few of these variants have reached the destruction level of popular ransomware viruses such as Locky, it does not mean the potential is not there.
As if this graph is not alarming enough, according to Neowin, ransomware actually had a 158.87% increase from March to April in 2016.
It’s time we start taking this epidemic seriously.
