Datto, Inc. revealed the results of its second annual global State of the Channel Ransomware Report.
As the largest survey of its kind, the report provides unique
visibility into the current state of ransomware from more than 1,700
managed service providers (MSPs) who work with more than 100,000
small-to-mid-sized businesses (SMBs) around the world. Ninety-nine
percent of MSPs predict uptick in attacks will continue across the next
two years.
The survey also found that approximately 5 percent of all SMBs worldwide fell victim to ransomware over the past year. Most
of the financial strain, the survey found, occurs not as the result of
the ransom demanded by malicious hackers, but because of the resultant
downtime and data loss.
"The
impact of downtime affects SMBs far more than the cost of ransom
requests. Seventy-five percent of MSPs reported having clients who
experienced business-threatening downtime as a result of a ransomware
attack," said Robert Gibbons, Chief Technology Officer, Datto.
The survey also provided additional insights, some surprising:
- Ransomware incidents are more frequent in 2017 according
to 97 percent of MSPs. Eighty-six percent of MSPs cited small business
clients victimized by ransomware within the last 2 years and 15 percent
report six or more attacks affecting their clients over the last year.
Twenty-six percent of MSPs cited multiple attacks against clients in a
single day.
- More ransomware attacks are being reported to the authorities,
but the majority of incidents are not. From 2016-2017, slightly less 1
in 3 SMB ransomware attacks were reported to authorities, an improvement
from less than 1 in 4 from 2015-2016.
- Fewer small businesses are paying the ransom. Thirty-five
percent of MSPs reported small business victims pay the ransom, 15
percent of whom do not recover their data. In the United Kingdom, this
population jumps to 21 percent. An estimated $301 million was paid to
ransomware hackers from 2016-2017.
- No industry, operating system or device is safe from these attacks. Among
those industry verticals who are targeted most by ransomware attacks
are construction, manufacturing, healthcare, professional services and
finance. SaaS applications continue to be a growing target for
ransomware attacks with Dropbox, Office 365 and G Suite most at risk.
Mobile and tablet attacks are also on the rise.
- When it comes to ransomware awareness, the majority are still in the dark. While
90 percent of MSP respondents cited they are "highly concerned" about
the business threat of ransomware, only 38 percent of small business
clients felt the same. This could be due to the lack of mandatory
cybersecurity training across small businesses, which MSPs cited as the
leading cause of ransomware infections.
- CryptoLocker remains the most popular strain of ransomware attacks. Additionally, new strains like WannaCry also broke the top five most cited attacks by MSPs.
- Ransomware outsmarts today's top security solutions, so backup and disaster recovery is essential. With
a reliable backup and recovery solution (BDR) in place, 96 percent of
MSPs report clients fully recover from ransomware attack.
"No
single defense solution is guaranteed to prevent a ransomware attack,"
said Dale Shulmistra, President, Invenio IT. "The most effective means
for business protection from ransomware is a backup and disaster
recovery (BDR) solution, followed by cybersecurity training. One hundred
percent of the time, we've been able to resolve the ransomware issue
for our SMB clients when such a solution is in place."
For more information and key findings from Datto's State of the Channel Ransomware Report, please visit Datto's website.