78% of Indian Companies Hit With Ransomware in 2021: Survey

As many as 78 per cent of Indian organisations were hit with ransomware in 2021, up from 68 per cent in 2020, claimed a recently released Sophos. The survey also found out that the average ransom paid by Indian organisations that had data encrypted in their most significant ransomware attack, was US$1,198,475, with 10 per cent of victims paying ransoms of US$1M or more.

About 78 per cent of the organisations that had data encrypted, paid the ransom to get their data back, even if they had other means of data recovery, such as backups. “The ransomware situation in India is worrying. The numbers of victims, ransom payments and the impact of these attacks continued to rise during 2021, at considerable cost,” said Sunil Sharma, managing director, sales, India and SAARC, Sophos.

The report summarises the impact of ransomware on 5,600 mid-sized organizations in 31 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, including 300 in India.

“While the average expense of recovering from an incident declined to US$2.8M from US$3.4M in 2020, it remains a significant number that should be sounding alarm bells among management teams of Indian firms. In 2021, the percentage of victim organisations directly impacted by ransomware increased from 68 per cent to 78 per cent. Ransomware isn’t something that might happen, it is something that will happen if you haven’t taken the precautions necessary,” the survey read.

The survey done by the Sophos has also recommends the best practices to help defend against ransomware and related cyberattacks. “With 89% of organisations insured and 100 per cent of them receiving compensation in the wake of an attack, we can expect the trends observed during 2021 in insurance coverage and costs to continue to increase,” said Sharma.

“Policies will require stronger defences at higher costs, with more exceptions. Cybercriminals will continue to see India as a prime target, due in part to the high proportion of victims paying the ransom. The results show that a considerable number of Indian victims are prepared to pay more than US$1M, but even ransom payments of a few thousand dollars are a good return for the crooks,” he added.

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