Security News > 2022 > June > Healthcare organizations face rising ransomware attacks – and are paying up

Healthcare organizations, already an attractive target for ransomware given the highly sensitive data they hold, saw such attacks almost double between 2020 and 2021, according to a survey released this week by Sophos.

"The proportion of healthcare organizations directly impacted by ransomware has almost doubled in 12 months. In the face of this near-normalization, healthcare organizations have gotten better at dealing with the aftermath of an attack: virtually everyone now gets some encrypted data back and nearly three quarters are able to use backups to restore data."

It's also the same week that cybersecurity firm Zscaler released its 2022 ThreatLabz Ransomware report, which found that the healthcare industry saw a 650 percent year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks - the largest growth of any industry.

John Gunn, CEO of authentication security vendor Token, told The Register in an email he isn't surprised to see healthcare as a top target of ransomware attacks.

Sophos believes 66 percent of healthcare organizations were hit by ransomware in 2021 - up from 34 percent the year before, representing a 94 percent increase.

The increase in ransomware attacks is part of a broader threat environment that is hitting healthcare more than any other sector, the researchers wrote.

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https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/06/03/healthcare-ransomware-pay-sophos/