The report further shows that only 24% of healthcare organisations were able to disrupt a ransomware attack before the attackers encrypted their data
The State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2023 report released by cybersecurity firm Sophos has shown that Cybercriminals successfully encrypted data in nearly 75% of ransomware attacks on healthcare organisations.
This is said to be the highest rate of encryption in the past three years and a significant increase from the 61% of healthcare organisations that reported having their data encrypted last year.
The report further notes that only 24% of healthcare organisations were able to disrupt a ransomware attack before the attackers encrypted their data—down from 34% in 2022; this is the lowest rate of disruption reported by the sector over the past three years.
“To me, the percentage of organisations that successfully stop an attack before encryption is a strong indicator of security maturity. For the healthcare sector, however, this number is quite low—only 24%.
“What’s more, this number is declining, which suggests the sector is actively losing ground against cyber attackers and is increasingly unable to detect and stop an attack in progress,” said Chester Wisniewski, director, field CTO, Sophos.
“Part of the problem is that ransomware attacks continue to grow in sophistication, and the attackers are speeding up their attack timelines,” he said.
In the latest Active Adversary Report for Tech Leaders, Chester says Sophos found that the median time from the start of a ransomware attack to detection was only five days, adding that 90% of ransomware attacks took place after regular business hours.
“The ransomware threat has simply become too complex for most companies to go at it alone. All organisations, especially those in healthcare, need to modernise their defensive approach to cybercrime, moving from being solely preventative to actively monitoring and investigating alerts 24/7 and securing outside help in the form of services like managed detection and response (MDR),” he said.
Additional key findings from the report include that in 37% of ransomware attacks where data was successfully encrypted, data was also stolen, suggesting a rise in the “double dip” method.
The report also notes that healthcare organisations are now taking longer to recover, with 47% recovering in a week, compared to 54% last year.
The overall number of ransomware attacks against healthcare organisations surveyed according to the report declined from 66% in 2022 to 60% this year.
Compromised credentials were also the number one root cause of ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations, followed by exploits.
Further, the number of healthcare organisations surveyed that paid ransom payments declined from 61% last year to 42% this year, which is lower than the cross-sector average of 46%.
