A new Coveware report based on data from the first quarter of 2019 highlights six interesting ransomware trends:
- Threat actors are demanding higher ransoms – the average ransom amount asked in incidents handled by Coveware was %12,762, a 89% increase over the last quarter of 2018, when the amount was $6,733.
- Manual ransomware attacks are on the rise – whereas traditional ransomware attacks are fully automated, threat actors are increasingly taking a more hands-on approach in order to leverage more effective attacks
- Downtime resulting from ransomware attacks is increasing – ransomware-related downtime increased from an average 6.2 days in Q4 2018 to 7.3 days in Q1 of this year.
- The costs of downtime are increasing as well.
- Ransomware is hitting the manufacturing sector hardest.
- Most victims who pay, regain access to their systems – In Q1 2019, 96% of ransomware victims who paid up, received a decryption key that allowed them to recover their data, a slight increase compared to Q4 2018 when the number was 93%. However, the recovery rate after payment varies depending on the type of ransomware used in the attack.
Read more: 6 Takeaways from Ransomware Attacks in Q1
