67% Indian businesses hit by ransomware: Sophos

New Delhi, March 14: With 67 per cent Indian businesses hit by ransomware — 38 per cent twice — they are at a high risk of repeated ransomware attacks and are vulnerable to exploits, a new report warned on Wednesday.

While $13.74 million were spent by three per cent of the organisations worldwide to rectify the impact of ransomware, India’s share remained the highest at $1.17 million, said global cybersecurity leader Sophos.

“We’re aware of cybercrimils unleashing four different ransomware families in half-hour increments to ensure at least one evades security and completes the attack,” said Sunil Sharma, Maging Director Sales at Sophos India & Saarc.

“Persistent cybercrimils are deploying multiple attack methods to succeed, whether using a mix of ransomware in a single campaign, taking advantage of a remote access opportunity, infecting a server or disabling security software,” he added.

The survey polled more than 2,700 IT decision-makers across mid-sized businesses in 10 countries worldwide, including India, the US, Cada, Mexico, France, Germany, UK, Australia, Japan and South Africa.

It said that 91 per cent Indian organisations claimed running up-to-date endpoint protection when impacted by ransomware.

“Nearly 54 per cent devices are infected per organisation which is higher than the global average infections at 46.09 per cent. Healthcare sector was impacted the highest by ransomware, at 76 per cent,” the findings showed.

More than 70 percent surveyed do not have anti-exploit technology, which means these businesses are easy prey for data breaches and complex threats like WanCrypt. (IANS)