Almost half of large UK businesses have suffered a ransomware attack in the past year, with nearly one third fearing that, although the situation has been resolved, the criminals may still be lurking in their systems.
Citrix surveyed 500 UK-based IT decision makers in companies with 250 or more employees, finding that 45% had fallen victim to a successful ransomware attack.
Despite this history of victimhood, the research also found that 11% of businesses this size don't have a formal ransomware policy in place and while 50% said plans are in place to have such a policy within the next 12 months, 38% said no such plans existed.
Knowing how to deal with a ransomware infection should one occur is increasingly important, though, as this strain of malware becomes ever more popular.
"A lot of this is about isolating a potentially infected machine, deciding whether you're going to pay the ransom or not there's a business choice to be made there - and then being able to build confidence that you have actually dealt with the ransomware attack and it isn't still lurking there," Chris Mayers, chief security architect at Citrix, told IT Pro.
This third element is also a current cause for concern, with 36% of those surveyed who had fallen victim to ransomware in the past 12 months telling Citrix they doubted all traces of that attack had been fully removed.
Ultimately, said Mayers, companies need to ensure they have a ransomware plan in place, including knowing who makes the decision as to whether or not to pay, as well as being sure they can isolate the infected machine(s) and having a solid backup-and-recovery plan in place.
-
Using WinRAR? Update now to avoid falling victim to this file path flawNews WinRAR users have been urged to update after a patch was issued for a serious vulnerability.
-
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy doubles down on the company's AI focusNews Amazon CEO Andy Jassy thinks companies need to "lean into" AI and embrace the technology despite concerns over job losses.
-
Swiss government data published following supply chain attack – here’s what we know about the culpritsNews Radix, a non-profit organization in the health promotion sector, supplies a number of federal offices, whose data has apparently been accessed.
-
Ransomware victims are getting better at haggling with hackersNews While nearly half of companies paid a ransom to get their data back last year, victims are taking an increasingly hard line with hackers to strike fair deals.
-
LockBit data dump reveals a treasure trove of intel on the notorious hacker groupNews An analysis of May's SQL database dump shows how much LockBit was really making
-
‘I take pleasure in thinking I can rid society of at least some of them’: A cyber vigilante is dumping information on notorious ransomware criminals – and security experts say police will be keeping close tabsNews An anonymous whistleblower has released large amounts of data allegedly linked to the ransomware gangs
-
It's been a bad week for ransomware operatorsNews A host of ransomware strains have been neutralized, servers seized, and key players indicted
-
Everything we know about the Peter Green Chilled cyber attackNews A ransomware attack on the chilled food distributor highlights the supply chain risks within the retail sector
-
Scattered Spider: Who are the alleged hackers behind the M&S cyber attack?News The Scattered Spider group has been highly active in recent years
-
Ransomware attacks are rising — but quiet payouts could mean there's more than actually reported
News Ransomware attacks continue to climb, but they may be even higher than official figures show as companies choose to quietly pay to make such incidents go away.
