The manufacturing sector had the highest average payout of all sectors, the report said. | So Good News

A new report indicates that the manufacturing sector had the highest average ransom payments among all sectors over the past 12 months.

Although the average ransom payment is highest in manufacturing and production. The percentage of organizations that actually paid the ransom was among the lowest across sectors (33 percent versus 46 percent for the cross-sector average), the report said.

66 percent of manufacturing and manufacturing organizations surveyed reported an increase in cyber attack complexity, and 61 percent reported an increase in the volume of cyber attacks compared to last year’s survey. Complexity and volume growth were 7 percent and 4 percent higher than the cross-sector average, respectively.

The manufacturing and manufacturing sector had the lowest rate of attacks associated with financial services, with only 55 percent of organizations surveyed being targeted by ransomware.

However, The percentage of manufacturing and production organizations affected by ransomware increased by 52 percent from last year’s report (to 36 percent in the 2021 survey report);

The Sophos report noted that the sector had the lowest encryption rates (57 per cent versus 65 per cent for the cross-sector average).

In a statement, John Shier, Senior Security Advisor; Sophos said: “Manufacturing is an attractive sector for cybercriminals to target due to the privileged position it enjoys in the supply chain. Outdated infrastructure and lack of visibility into the OT environment gives attackers an easy way and launching pad for attacks within a breached network. The integration of IT and OT increases the attack surface and exacerbates the complex threat environment.”