The sixth annual Sophos State of Ransomware report supplies recent insights into the elements that led organizations to fall sufferer to ransomware and the human and enterprise impacts of an assault.
Primarily based on insights from a vendor-agnostic survey of three,400 IT and cybersecurity leaders throughout 17 international locations whose organizations had been hit by ransomware within the final 12 months, the report combines year-on-year insights with model new areas of examine, together with why ransom funds not often match the preliminary demand, and the downstream influence of ransomware incidents on in-house groups.
Obtain the report to get the complete findings and browse on for a style of a number of the subjects coated.
Why organizations fall sufferer to ransomware
It’s not often a single situation that leaves organizations uncovered to ransomware; reasonably a mix of technological and operational elements contributes to organizations falling sufferer to assault.
Technical root causes
For the third 12 months operating, victims recognized exploited vulnerabilities as the commonest root reason for ransomware incidents, used to penetrate organizations in 32% of assaults total. This discovering highlights the significance of figuring out and patching safety gaps earlier than adversaries can make the most of them.
Compromised credentials stay the second most typical perceived assault vector, though the share of assaults that used this strategy dropped from 29% in 2024 to 23% in 2025. E-mail stays a serious vector of assault, whether or not by means of malicious emails (19%) or phishing (18%).
Learn the complete report for insights into how assault vectors differ based mostly on group measurement.
Operational root causes
For the primary time, this 12 months’s report explores the organizational elements that left corporations uncovered to assaults. The findings reveal that victims are sometimes going through a number of operational challenges, with respondents citing 2.7 elements, on common, that contributed to them being hit by ransomware.
Total, there isn’t any single stand-out supply, with the operational causes very evenly cut up throughout safety points, resourcing points, and safety gaps.
Obtain the complete report for a deeper dive, together with insights into the person elements behind these numbers, in addition to a breakdown of operational challenges by firm measurement and business sector.
Restoration of encrypted knowledge
The excellent news is that 97% of organizations that had knowledge encrypted had been in a position to recuperate it. Much less encouraging is that knowledge restoration by means of backups is at its lowest charge in six years.
Just below half (49%) paid the ransom and bought their knowledge again. Whereas this represents a small discount from final 12 months’s 56%, it stays the second highest charge of ransom funds within the final six years.
Learn the report to study extra about each knowledge encryption charges and knowledge restoration.
Ransoms: Calls for and funds
There’s excellent news on this entrance: each preliminary ransom calls for and precise ransom funds dropped during the last 12 months – largely pushed by a discount within the proportion of calls for/funds of $5 million or extra. Whereas encouraging, it’s necessary to remember the fact that 57% of ransom calls for and 52% of funds had been for $1 million or extra.
826 organizations that paid the ransom shared each the preliminary demand and their precise fee, revealing that they paid, on common, 85% of the preliminary ransom demand. Total, 53% paid lower than the preliminary ask, 18% paid extra, and 29% matched the preliminary demand.
Learn the complete report to study extra, embrace particulars of why some organizations pay greater than the demand and others are in a position to pay much less.
The enterprise and human penalties of ransomware
The info reveals that organizations are getting higher at responding to assaults, reporting decrease prices and quicker restoration.
The common (imply) price to recuperate from a ransomware assault (excluding any ransom fee) dropped by 44% during the last 12 months, coming in at $1.53 million, down from $2.73 million in 2024. On the identical time, over half of victims (53%) had been recovered inside every week, a major bounce from the 35% reported in 2024.
Having knowledge encrypted in a ransomware assault has vital repercussions for the IT/cybersecurity group, with all respondents saying their group has been impacted in a roundabout way.
Learn the report
Obtain the report to get the complete findings along with suggestions on learn how to elevate your ransomware defenses based mostly on the learnings from 3,400 organizations that fell sufferer within the final 12 months. To study extra about how Sophos MDR and Sophos Endpoint Safety ship world-leading ransomware safety, go to our web site or converse along with your Sophos adviser.
