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Ransom payments after attacks on critical infrastructure continue to grow.
Ransomware attacks on the UK's critical national infrastructure (CNI) have led to an unprecedented increase in the associated costs. According to the latest data from Sophos, over the past year, the median amount paid to attackers reached a record 2.54 million dollars. This figure is 41 times higher than last year ($62,500).
The study involved 275 Research Institute organizations, of which 86 disclosed financial details of incidents. The average amount of buybacks in 2024 increased to $ 3,225 million, which is 6 times more than a year ago.
It is interesting to note that different industries respond differently to threats. Companies in the IT, technology and telecommunications sectors were less likely than others to make concessions to ransomware, paying an average of $ 330,000. The largest amounts — an average of $ 6.6 million — were paid to primary education institutions and federal government organizations.
Recovery costs from cyberattacks have also increased markedly. In some sectors of the SOI, these costs have quadrupled, reaching an average of $ 3 million per incident.
The energy sector and water supply were most severely affected. Recovery costs in these sectors were four times higher than the global average of $ 750,000. In addition, energy and water services were among the most vulnerable: 67% of organizations in these industries were affected by cyber attacks, which is significantly higher than the average of 59% for other sectors.
To make matters worse, the recovery process in the energy and water sectors has taken longer. Only one in five organizations were able to return to normal operations after a week or earlier, compared with 41% a year earlier and 50% two years earlier. Moreover, the proportion of victims who took more than a month to recover increased to 55% from last year's 36%.
According to Sophos experts, the recovery time may increase due to the growing complexity of attacks that require more careful work of IT specialists. However, Chester Wisniewski, the company's global CTO, calls for a review of the company's anti-ransomware policy first. He emphasizes that making concessions to cybercriminals not only contradicts the interests of organizations in the long term, but also provokes new incidents.
Discussions about a legal ban on payments to extortionists have been going on for a long time. However, Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), believes a complete ban is impractical. Instead of a complete ban, she suggested paying attention to the CIRCIA initiative. This program is similar to the bill being drafted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Its Cybersecurity and Resilience Act will introduce a mandatory requirement for operators of critical national infrastructure: they will have to report every case of a ransomware attack.
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Ransomware attacks on the UK's critical national infrastructure (CNI) have led to an unprecedented increase in the associated costs. According to the latest data from Sophos, over the past year, the median amount paid to attackers reached a record 2.54 million dollars. This figure is 41 times higher than last year ($62,500).
The study involved 275 Research Institute organizations, of which 86 disclosed financial details of incidents. The average amount of buybacks in 2024 increased to $ 3,225 million, which is 6 times more than a year ago.
It is interesting to note that different industries respond differently to threats. Companies in the IT, technology and telecommunications sectors were less likely than others to make concessions to ransomware, paying an average of $ 330,000. The largest amounts — an average of $ 6.6 million — were paid to primary education institutions and federal government organizations.
Recovery costs from cyberattacks have also increased markedly. In some sectors of the SOI, these costs have quadrupled, reaching an average of $ 3 million per incident.
The energy sector and water supply were most severely affected. Recovery costs in these sectors were four times higher than the global average of $ 750,000. In addition, energy and water services were among the most vulnerable: 67% of organizations in these industries were affected by cyber attacks, which is significantly higher than the average of 59% for other sectors.
To make matters worse, the recovery process in the energy and water sectors has taken longer. Only one in five organizations were able to return to normal operations after a week or earlier, compared with 41% a year earlier and 50% two years earlier. Moreover, the proportion of victims who took more than a month to recover increased to 55% from last year's 36%.
According to Sophos experts, the recovery time may increase due to the growing complexity of attacks that require more careful work of IT specialists. However, Chester Wisniewski, the company's global CTO, calls for a review of the company's anti-ransomware policy first. He emphasizes that making concessions to cybercriminals not only contradicts the interests of organizations in the long term, but also provokes new incidents.
Discussions about a legal ban on payments to extortionists have been going on for a long time. However, Jen Easterly, director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), believes a complete ban is impractical. Instead of a complete ban, she suggested paying attention to the CIRCIA initiative. This program is similar to the bill being drafted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Its Cybersecurity and Resilience Act will introduce a mandatory requirement for operators of critical national infrastructure: they will have to report every case of a ransomware attack.
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