KnowBe4’s annual report shows that organizations with 1,000 to 5,000 employees in either manufacturing, technology and consumer-focused industries have experienced the most ransomware attacks in 2017.
KnowBe4’s numbers show that the on average, 16 workstations, 5 servers and 22 users within an organization were affected in any given attack. Companies that hold more critical data in an organization have complied with ransomware attacks, and paid for the protection of their data. Ransom payouts ranged from anywhere between $500 to $1Million in either USD or bitcoins.
Affected organizations said that the attacks have impacted common office files that include critical, sensitive and proprietary data. With ransomware attacks companies are starting to understand the importance of protecting their data by maintaining backup files.
It is imperative that companies and their employees are aware of the threat that ransomware attacks can have on a company. Being aware of phishing scams and malware threats is shown to be very effective in protecting companies.
KnowBe4’s report says that “The organizations continually performing security awareness training, as well as periodically testing employees with phishing emails saw the lowest percentage of ransomware attacks (8%) and malware-based external attacks (14%) in the last 12 months.”
Read KnowBe4’s full 2018 Threat Impact and Endpoint Protection Report here to learn more: https://info.knowbe4.com/threat-impact-endpoint-protection