Four in five critical infrastructure organisations in Asia Pacific (APAC) were hit by ransomware attacks last year, with 51% of them paying the ransom.
Among them, 71% paid ransom fees between US$100,000 and US$1 million, according to the Global State of Industrial Cybersecurity 2021: Resilience Amid Disruption report by industrial cybersecurity company Claroty.
More than half (52%) of the ransomware victims in APAC also reported a downtime event that would cost them up to US$0.5 million per hour in lost revenue, while 36% reported even higher costs of up to US$5 million per hour.
To prevent similar incidents, ransomware victims in APAC are increasing their security budget (55%) and implementing new or updated cybersecurity controls and processes (40%). Nine in ten also said their organisation’s C-suite and board are very involved in cybersecurity decision-making and oversight, which bodes well for ongoing investment and prioritisation.
Commenting on the findings, Claroty CEO Yaniv Vardi says: “Our research shows that critical infrastructure security is at a pivotal juncture, where threats are proliferating and evolving, but there’s also a growing collective interest and desire in protecting our most essential systems.”
“Security leaders looking to take their programs to the next level must account for all cyber-physical systems in their risk governance practices, segmenting their IT and OT (operational technology) networks and assets, extending their general IT cybersecurity practices to their OT devices, and consistently monitoring for threats across all networks,” he adds.
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Photo: Nahel Abdul Hadi/Unsplash
