More than half of retailers pay up when hit by ransomware

New research from Sophos into ransomware in the retail industry shows that among organizations that had data encrypted, 58 percent paid the ransom to get their data back -- the second highest payment rate in five years. The survey, of 361 retail IT and cybersecurity leaders across 16 countries, also finds that 46 percent of attacks began with an unknown security gap, while 30 percent exploited known vulnerabilities. 58 percent of victims with encrypted data paid, however, only 48 percent of attacks resulted in encryption. The median ransom demand doubled to $2 million from 2024 and average payment increased five… [Continue Reading]