Most Ransomware Victims Who Pay Up Don’t Get Their Data Back

It’s any IT professional’s worst nightmare, writes Trevor Dearing, an SC Media contributor. Someone has breached the network, locked users out of their computers, captured company data, and has held it for ransom.

Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that ransomware costs in damage and ransoms will exceed $265 billion by 2031.

According to a Ponemon Institute report, 58 percent of organizations halted operations in 2024 following a ransomware attack. And they were down for an average of 12 hours.

In 2024, on average, organizations spent $150,000 resolving an attack. That’s just the hard costs. More than one-third of organizations also reported damage to their brands following an attack.

Ponemon found that 51 percent of organizations that were attacked paid the ransom, and only 13 percent got their data back.

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