The ransomware threat in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) shows no signs of abating, with over half of organizations in both countries reportedly affected by a ransomware attack in the past six months, according to a new study.
See also: Free Akira ransomware decryptor helps recover your files
The study, commissioned by Cohesity, Tenable and BigID and conducted by Censuswide in late April 2023, also found that 94% of respondents believe the threat of ransomware attacks in their industry has increased in 2023 compared to the previous year, while 79% are concerned about their organization's cyber resilience strategy to mitigate cyber threats.
See also: 8Base ransomware group rivals Lockbit in extortion
A key aspect of cyber resilience is the ability to recover from cyber attacks. At ANZ, over 99% of respondents revealed that it would take more than 24 hours to recover data and business processes in the event of a cyber attack. Eight in 10 said it would take more than four days, while almost half of respondents said it would take more than a week.
As expected, seven out of ten respondents did not have full confidence that their company could recover its data and critical business processes in the event of a system-wide cyberattack
Digging deeper into expectations for cyber resilience and data recovery versus reality, 95% of respondents said their organization would consider paying a ransom, while nearly four in five (78%) believe their organization would pay a ransom if it could recover data and business processes or recover faster.
Recovering from a ransomware attack requires close collaboration between IT and security teams, which is not always the case. A lack of coordination between IT and security was a barrier to recovery for a third of ANZ respondents, among other challenges such as a lack of timely and detailed notifications (32%) and a lack of a recent, clean, unaltered copy of data (30%).
See also: The construction sector is exposed to many ransomware attacks
Just half of ANZ respondents appeared confident that their data in the cloud was protected compared to data stored locally, which just one in six believed was protected.
The increased threat of ransomware has increased demand for cyber insurance, with 75% of respondents confirming that their organizations have cyber insurance. However, almost half said that it is now more difficult to obtain cyber insurance than it was in 2020.
Respondents also noted that the three most critical technologies or capabilities required to ensure cybersecurity are strong encryption (39%), multi-factor authentication (37%), and the ability to verify the integrity of backups (34%).
Information source: computerweekly.com
