Quick Intelligence Blog

A Sophos study found that 44% of retail organisations were hit by a ransomware attack in 2020, and more than half of those affected (54%) said cyber criminals had succeeded in encrypting their data.

Sophos’s State of ransomware in retail 2021 report also found that of the retailers whose data was encrypted, 32% paid the ransom to get their data back, and the average ransom payment was $147,811. A further 56% used backups to restore their data. Unfortunately, of those who did pay the ransom, they only received 67% of their data on average, leaving almost a third of it completely inaccessible. Just 9% of ransom-paying organisations got all their encrypted data back.

Aside from the ransomware payments, the average total cost of ransomware attacks on retail organizations was $1.97 million. That cost includes things like downtime, people time (staff and experts to investigate the breach and restore the network), device cost, network cost, lost opportunity, and the actual ransom paid.

It is obvious that ransomware can seriously harm your retail business. As a retail business owner, you need to take the following 4 steps to protect your business from ransomware.

1. Have offline and offsite back-ups to ensure you can restore your data if it’s encrypted with ransomware
2. Use endpoint protection to help defend your organization from ransomware
3. Mandate everyone takes a cyber awareness training course to reduce their risk of unknowingly installing ransomware
4. Have some form or cyber or ransomware insurance to help you recover from a ransomware attack.

At QuickProtect, we understand how ransomware can affect your retail business. That is why we offer a cyber security package that includes offline and offsite backups, endpoint protection, employee awareness training and ransomware insurance. To learn more about our services and packages, please visit our services page.