Some 77% of retail organisations hit globally, a 75% increase from 2020The retail industry had the second highest rate of ransomware attacks last year of all sectors surveyed after the media, leisure, and entertainment industry, according to a new study by Sophos. polled 5,600 IT professionals in mid-sized organisations across 31 countries, including 422 respondents from the retail sector.This is also 11% more than the cross-sector average attack rate of 66%, Sophos said.
“In Sophos’ experience, the organisations that are successfully defending against these attacks are not just using layered defenses, they are augmenting security with humans trained to monitor for breaches and actively hunting down threats that bypass the perimeter before they can detonate into even bigger problems,” Wisniewski said.
As the percentage of retail organisations attacked by ransomware increased, so did the average ransom payment, Sophos said. “With Initial Access Brokers and Ransomware-as-a-Service, it’s unfortunately easy for bottom-rung cybercriminals to buy network access and a ransomware kit to launch an attack without much effort,” he added.