India has been the worst hit by ransomware in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, with 74 per cent of organisations having suffered a ransomware attack this year, as compared to 67 per cent in Australia, 52 per cent in Japan and 46 per cent in Singapore, said a survey on Wednesday.
About 34 per cent Indian respondents shared that they have paid between $1 million-$2.5 million as a result of malware attacks in the last 12 months as compared to 21 per cent in Japan, 69 per cent in Singapore and 23 per cent in Australia, showed the survey by US-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
Indian organisations feel most threatened by eCrime groups (90 per cent), hacktivists (77 per cent) and insider threats (66 per cent) followed by threats from nation states (64 per cent), according to the “2020 CrowdStrike Global Security Attitude Survey.”
The results showed that 76 per cent respondents feel most threatened by cyberattacks originating from China followed by Pakistan (48 per cent) and Russia (43 per cent). China has been a common threat across regions with 75% in Japan, 72% in Singapore and 72% in Australia.
More than half of Indian organisations feel that nation state attacks will be the biggest concern for 2021.
“This year has been especially challenging for organisations of all sizes around the world, with both the proliferation of ransomware and growing tensions from nation-state actors posing a massive threat to regions worldwide,” Michael Sentonas, Chief Technology Officer, CrowdStrike, said in a statement.
“Now more than ever, organisations are finding ways to rapidly undergo digital transformation to bring their security to the cloud in order to keep pace with modern-day threats and secure their ‘work from anywhere’ operations.”
The Covid-19 pandemic catalysed increasing concerns around ransomware attacks, with many organisations resorting to paying the ransom.
The global attitude has shifted from a question of if an organisation will experience a ransomware attack to a matter of when an organisation will inevitably pay a ransom.
The APAC region is suffering the most when paying the ransom with the highest average payout at $1.18 million, followed by EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) at $1.06 million and the US at $0.99 million.
The study surveyed 2,200 senior IT decision-makers and IT security professionals in the US, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Middle East, India, Japan, Singapore and Australia across major industry sectors.
The report details the attitudes and beliefs of those in charge of cybersecurity, and tracks how they are faring against sophisticated and pervasive cyberattacks.
–IANS
