Venafi published the results of a global poll of over 1,500 IT security decision-makers, which showed that 60% of security professionals believe ransomware threats should be treated on par with terrorism.
Following the attack on the Colonial Pipeline earlier this year, the US Department of Justice upgraded the threat level of ransomware. According to the report, just about a third of respondents have put in place basic security protections to break the ransomware kill chain.
Other significant findings:
- Over the last 12 months, 67 per cent of respondents from companies with more than 500 employees have suffered a ransomware assault, rising to 80 per cent for companies with 3,000-4,999 employees.
- Although 37% of respondents said they would pay the ransom, 57% said they would reconsider if they had to publicly publish the payment, as required by the Ransomware Disclosure Act, a bill introduced in the US Senate that would require corporations to reveal ransomware payments within 48 hours.
- Despite the increased frequency of ransomware assaults, 77 percent of respondents are optimistic that the mechanisms they have in place would keep them safe from ransomware. IT decision makers in Australia have the most faith in their tools (88 percent), compared to 71 percent in the United States and 70 percent in Germany.
- Paying a ransom is considered "morally wrong" by 22% of respondents.
- Seventeen per cent of those hacked admitted to paying the ransom, with Americans paying the highest (25 per cent) and Australian businesses paying the least (9 per cent).
Many depend on traditional security controls to tackle ransomware threats
Kevin Bocek, VP ecosystem and threat intelligence at Venafi stated, “The fact that most IT security professionals consider terrorism and ransomware to be comparable threats tells you everything you need to know; these attacks are indiscriminate, debilitating, and embarrassing.”
“Unfortunately, our research shows that while most organizations are extremely concerned about ransomware, they also have a false sense of security about their ability to prevent these devastating attacks. Too many organizations say they rely on traditional security controls like VPNs and vulnerability scanning instead of modern security controls, like code signing, that are built-in to security and development processes.”
According to the survey, most businesses do not employ security controls that disrupt the ransomware kill chain early in the attack cycle. Many ransomware attacks begin with phishing emails including a malicious attachment, yet only 21% of ransomware assaults restrict all macros in Microsoft Office documents.
Only 28% of firms require all software to be digitally signed by their organization before employees are permitted to execute it, and only 18% utilize group policy to limit the usage of PowerShell.
