Cohesity Research Shows Cyber Insurance and Ransomware Payouts Paper
Over Cracks in Cyber Security Confidence
_Over 9 out of 10 say threat has increased with 72% being willing to pay
ransom and use insurance to help recovery_
London, UK – 18 July 2023 – Cyber threats are increasing, capabilities
aren’t keeping pace and ransom payouts and insurance cover the gaps,
these are the findings from new research commissioned by Cohesity [1], a
leader in data security and management.
As part of a global survey of over 3,400 IT and Security decision
makers, 91% of those surveyed in the UK believe that the threat of
ransomware attack has increased over the past year and 39% of
respondent’s organisations had been a victim to it in the last six
months, showing again how ransomware continues to blight the industry.
Cyber resiliency plans that enable organisations to anticipate,
withstand, recover from and adapt to different types of attack aren’t
keeping pace with rising threats. While over 85% of respondents’
organisations have a cyber resiliency strategy in place, only one in
five (23%) have complete confidence in it and over half (53%) say that
it has gaps, could be improved or they have little confidence in it. 42%
say their teams are stretched too thin, while over a third of
respondents (38%) say their organisation’s leadership is simply not
aware of the importance of cyber resiliency, perhaps explaining why
organisations are still failing to invest sufficiently in skilled people
and solutions. In fact, 70% of respondents believe that they currently
lack enough skilled workers to respond effectively to a data breach or
loss.
“A cyber resiliency strategy that prioritises the ability to recover
from a cyber-attack is arguably more important than one that focuses
solely on prevention,” said James Blake, CISO EMEA at Cohesity. “But all
the time that companies try to pay their way out of trouble with
ransoms, insurance or warranties is throwing money in the wrong
direction as this won’t help them recover the data and processes that
keep the organisation in business. The gaps aren’t in prevention or even
in the workforce, the gaps that need bridging are in the c-suite taking
the threats seriously and investing in tools to rapidly recover from
attacks.”
Data recovery capabilities
Despite these concerns, 95% are confident they can recover data and
critical business processes in the event of a data breach or loss,
although 68% said it will be touch and go or they have limited
confidence. About a third (37%) cited a lack of coordination between IT
and security teams as the biggest barrier to getting the organisation
back up and running, a similar number (31%) said that lack of a recent
clean and immutable copy of data would be their biggest hurdle. 52% of
respondents believe they would recover data and business processes in
under a week (1-6 days) and a leading 3% believe they could do it in
under 24 hours.
Ransoms and Insurance Payouts
However, it appears from the research that organisations are prepared to
pay to compensate for some of the gaps in their cyber resiliency. Of
those surveyed, only 9% ruled out paying a ransom to recover their data
after an attack. 29% would definitely pay and 62% would consider it
depending on the severity of the attack and cost of ransom. Likewise,
80% believe that they would be covered by ransomware warranties,
contrary to Cohesity’s own investigation of the terms and conditions of
many warranties [4]. Similarly, 73% of those surveyed said their
organisation has cyber-insurance, but reflecting the industry
challenges, almost half (48%) said it was harder* to get insurance now
than three years ago.
“IT and SecOps must co-own organisations’ cyber resilience outcomes to
identify sensitive data and protect, detect, respond, and recover from
cyberattacks,” said Brian Spanswick, CISO, Cohesity. “Relying on
traditional backup and recovery systems, which lack modern data security
capabilities, in today’s sophisticated cyber threat landscape is a
recipe for disaster. Instead, organisations should seek out data
security and management platforms that integrate with their existing
cybersecurity solutions and provide visibility into their security
posture and improve cyber resilience.”
About the survey:
The findings are based on a survey of 500 IT and Security Operations
(SecOps) decision-makers (split 50/50 between the two groups) from
organisations in the UK. The global survey comprised over 3,400
respondents from Australia, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, UK, and
the United States, and will be released in full in late July as part of
Cohesity’s Global 2023 State of Data Security & Management Report.
