The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom that suffered a ransomware attack and decided to pay the ransom, increased dramatically over the past year.
This results from a new Censornet report, which also cites some reasons why small and medium-sized businesses choose to ignore the advice of experts on cybersecurity and law enforcement services, succumbing to the demands of criminals.
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Censornet recently surveyed 200 IT decision-makers at mid-market organizations in the UK and published the findings in its “Cyber Resilience Report 2023.” The document contained a mix of good and bad news about ransomware attacks
Mid‑size businesses want enterprise‑level technology.
It was reported that the number of organizations that were attacked by ransomware decreased year-on-year, from 21% to 17%. The average cost of a ransomware attack also appears to have decreased by more than a third (37%). But the number of victims who decide to pay the ransom increased from 21% in 2021 to 85% last year.
The reason for the change in mindset appears to be a general inability to deal with threats. Only a third (37%) can prevent malicious attachments their employees’ inboxes, a decrease of 14% year-on-year. Email attacks are thus the top cybersecurity incident, with a third of businesses experiencing at least one such attack (up from 16% last year).
These businesses will benefit from better technology solutions, according to further research. More than half (51%) of SMBs believe cybersecurity needs future development (up from 40% last year). Last year, 15% moved away from legacy technologies and 63% reduced the number of security vendors. Additionally, 61% adopted a more unified approach to cybersecurity solutions.
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Finally, 43% want access to cybersecurity innovations offered to large enterprises, but 40% would like to see simplified business-level security applications.
Information source: techradar.com
