Disturbing statistics emerged from Sophos’ Annual “State of Ransomware 2022” in which it was found that ransomware hit 71% of Nigerian organizations surveyed.
More worrisome is the fact that 44% of these organizations that had data encrypted in a ransomware attack admitted to have paid the ransom.
The report summarizes 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.
So, what are the possible ways out?
Well, Sophos has recommended five practices to help your organisation defend against ransomware and related cyberattacks.
They are:
- Install and maintain high-quality defenses across all points in the organization’s environment. Review security controls regularly and make sure they continue to meet the organization’s needs
- Proactively hunt for threats to identify and stop adversaries before they can execute their attack – if the team lacks the time or skills to do this in house, outsource to a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) specialist
- Harden the IT environment by searching for and closing key security gaps: unpatched devices, unprotected machines, open RDP ports, etc. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are ideal for this purpose
- Prepare for the worst. Know what to do if a cyber incident occurs and keep the plan updated
- Make backups, and practice restoring from them so that the organization can get back up and running as soon as possible, with minimum disruption
Read The State of Ransomware 2022 report for the full global findings and data by sector.
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