Over 60% of Organizations Say Would Not Pay Attackers

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It’s time to Take Precautions Against Cybercriminals in Order to Be Ready and Safe Against Threat Actors.

In the light of recent events around the Colonial Pipeline cybersecurity incident in the US, a recent report by ISACA – an IT association suggests that more than 60% of IT professionals expect their companies to take further precautions against cybercriminals and only 32 percent state that their system is ready and safe against threat actors.

The ISACA document comes to show that most of the companies are saying they would not accept to pay ransom to cybercriminals and only 22% say that – given an attack on a critical infrastructure element of the network being attacked, a ransom should be paid in order to regain access to that infrastructure.
 

In a vacuum, the guidance not to pay makes total sense. We don’t want to negotiate with criminals. But when you need to get your business back online, a cost/benefit analysis is going to come into play, and a company is going to do what it needs to do to have continuity. Good cyber-hygiene has to be a focus to avoid getting to this point.

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The study also shows some other interesting facts, such as a far larger number of organizations are prepared for an attack as opposed to a few years back when the WannaCry, Petya, and NotPetya attacks inflicted major damage. And two-thirds of respondents expect their organization to take new precautions in the aftermath of the Colonial Pipeline incident.

Also, it’s worth noting that more than half of the organizations asked are aware that they may be the target of an attack in the coming year.

On the other hand, despite this increased awareness, almost 40% say that they did not conduct any ransomware training for their staff.
 

The fact that more than 80% of organizations are more prepared for ransomware incidents now than they were during the 2017 attacks—and that so many will be taking new precautions after Colonial Pipeline—is wonderful news.

Open reporting of cyberattacks appears to be working, and in this transparency, we can expect to see newer threats mitigated earlier with faster response times.

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There are some basic steps organizations need to take in order to stay on the safe side such as Understanding risk profiles by conducting specific assessments in this direction. Cyber teams can be set up and they can better assess areas that require the most attention when allocating cybersecurity resources.

These teams should enforce phishing attacks through continuous testing and assign cybersecurity roles in the company.

Other measures include systems patching on a regular basis, end-user device protection, and good communication from the executive leadership to the level of basic employees.
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