Home ›› 13 Nov 2022 ›› Corporate
Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, recently published a new sectoral survey report on ransom payments after cyber-attacks.
The survey report titled ‘The State of Ransomware in Manufacturing and Production’ revealed that the sector had the highest average ransom payment across all sectors: $2,036,189 versus $812,360, respectively.
The report also found that, 66 per cent of manufacturing and production organisations witnessed an increase in the complexity of cyber-attacks, and 61 per cent reported an increase in the volume of cyber-attacks when compared to the previous year’s survey. The increase in complexity and volume is also 7 per cent and 4 per cent higher than the cross-sector average, respectively.
“Manufacturing is an attractive sector to target for cybercriminals due to the privileged position it occupies in the supply chain. Outdated infrastructure and lack of visibility into the OT environment provide attackers with an easy way in and a launching pad for attacks inside a breached network. The convergence of IT and OT is increasing the attack surface and exacerbating an already complex threat environment,” said John Shier, senior security advisor, Sophos.
“While having reliable backups is an important part of recovery, today’s ransomware threat requires a detailed response plan that includes human-led threat-hunting capabilities. Complex attacks require comprehensive protection, which, for many organizations, will include the addition of managed detection and response (MDR) teams who are trained to look for and neutralize active attackers.”
While manufacturing and production had the highest average ransom payment, the percentage of organisations that paid the ransom was among the lowest across sectors.
