Only 26% of retail organisations this past year disrupted a ransomware attack before data encryption, according to “The State of Ransomware in Retail 2023” by Sophos.
The study reveals that the number has declined for three consecutive years, from 34% in 2021, and 28% in 2022. Results suggest that the retail sector is increasingly unable to stop ransomware attacks in progress.
“Retailers must up their defensive game by setting up security that detects and responds to intrusions earlier in the attack chain,” said Chester Wisniewski, director, global field CTO at Sophos.
Recovery costs
“Forty-three percent of retail victims paid the ransom according to our survey respondents, yet the median recovery cost to victims who paid the ransom was four times the cost to those who used backups and other recovery methods. There are no shortcuts in these situations and rebuilding systems is almost always required. It is better to deprive the criminals of their spoils and build back better,” said Wisniewski.
Best practices
To fight against ransomware and other cyberattacks, Sophos recommends strengthening defensive shields with security tools with strong anti-ransomware and anti-exploit capabilities, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to prevent the abuse of compromised credentials, Adaptive technologies that respond automatically to attacks, and a round-the-clock threat detection, investigation, and response.
Sophos also suggests optimising attack preparation, including regularly backing up, practicing recovering data from backups and maintaining an up-to-date incident response plan, and maintaining security hygiene.