Sophos has released its The State of Ransomware 2023 report, which concludes that “independent of revenue, geography, or industry, ransomware continues to be major threat to organizations.” Sophos supports this conclusion with that fact that the number of ransomware victims whose data was encrypted by their victimizer has grown to 76 percent, the highest the report has seen since it began in 2020. In 30 percent of those situations, that data was also stolen in a double extortion attack.

Infosecurity Magazine’s summary of the report notes that “those who choose to pay their extorters double recovery costs: from an average of $375,000 for those who use backups to $750,000.” Organizations who used backups to recover also saw quicker recovery times versus those who paid off criminals. This is of concern as the percentage of organizations who utilized backups for recovery has fallen for the first time in the report’s existence. Read more at Sophos.