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Sophos, the global leader in next-generation cybersecurity solutions, shares a new retail industry report, the The State of Ransomware in Retail 2022. One of the main findings is that, last year, retail registered the second highest rate of ransomware attacks among all sectors surveyed, behind only the media, leisure and entertainment industry.
Globally, 77% of retail organizations surveyed were hit — a 75% increase from 2020, and also 11% above the average attack rate across all industries (66%).
“Retail continues to suffer from one of the highest rates of ransomware attacks recorded in various industries. With more than three out of four companies suffering an attack in 2021, surely incidents of this kind are now a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. In our experience, organizations that successfully defend against these attacks are not just using layered defenses, they are augmenting security with people trained to monitor for flaws and actively hunt for threats that breach the security perimeter before they break out. make problems even bigger. This year’s study shows that only 28% of retailers were able to prevent their data from being encrypted, which suggests that a large part of the industry needs to improve its security posture, with the right tools and properly trained security experts to help. to manage your efforts.”
Chester Wisniewski, Principal Research Scientist at Sophos.
As the percentage of retail businesses victimized by ransomware increased, so did the average amount of ransoms paid. In 2021, the average payment was €226,039, an increase of 53% when compared to 2020 (€148,036). However, this figure represents less than a third of the average for all sectors (€813,024).
“It is likely that different groups of ransomware are hitting different industries. Some of the less skilled ask for between €50,000 and €200,000 in ransom payments, while the more sophisticated and more visible require €1 million or more. With Initial Access Brokers (IABs) and Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), it is unfortunately easy for lesser cybercriminals to buy network access and a ransomware kit to launch an attack without much effort. Individual stores and small chains are the most likely to be targeted by these opportunistic criminals.”
Chester Wisniewski, Principal Research Scientist at Sophos.
Other findings from this study include:
- Although the retail sector was the second most affected, the noticeable increase in the volume and complexity of cyberattacks suffered was slightly lower than the global average;
- 92% of retail organizations hit by ransowmare said the attack affected their ability to operate, and 89% admitted to lost business/revenue;
- In 2021, the global cost to remediate a ransomware attack in this sector was €1.27M, down from €1.97M in 2020.
- Compared to 2020, the amount of data recovered after paying the ransom has decreased (from 67% to 62%), as has the percentage of organizations in this industry that recovered all of their data (from 9% to 5%).
In light of the survey results, Sophos experts recommend the following best practices for organizations across industries:
- Install and maintain high-quality defenses at every point in an organization’s environment. Regularly review security controls and ensure they continue to meet requirements;
- Proactively hunt threats to identify and stop adversaries before they can launch their attacks — if your team doesn’t have the time or skills to do this in-house, you should consider subcontracting an expert in Managed Detection and Response (Managed Detection and Response – MDR).
- Strengthen the IT environment, looking for and closing the main security gaps: devices without patches, unprotected machines and open RDP ports. The solutions of Enhanced Detection and Response (Extended Detection and Response — XDR) are ideal for this purpose;
- Be prepared for the worst and have an up-to-date action plan in case a major incident occurs;
- To do backups and practice your restoration to ensure minimal disruption and the shortest possible recovery time.
For this study, 5,600 IT professionals were surveyed, including 422 from the retail sector, in medium-sized organizations in 31 countries. To learn more about State of Ransomware in Retail 2022, download the full report here.
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