The True Cost of Ransomware is Much More Than Just the Ransom

via ResearchBuzz Firehose: an article Sean Michael Kerner for eWeek

While the FBI has one set of numbers for the financial impact of ransomware, new figures from publicly traded companies shows the impact to be significantly higher.

Ransomware has been a growing internet security attack tactic over the course of the past year, with multiple groups attempting to quantify the financial impact.

In a ransomware attack, an attacker is able to install malware that encrypts data on a victim's system. The victimized system will then have a message on it, instructing the user to pay the ransom, in order to decrypt the data. While ransom payments are a core part of the ransomware model, they are likely the smallest financial component in terms of the actual impact that organizations face in the aftermath of an attack.

In June, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its' 2016 Internet Crime Report, providing statistics on $1.33 billion in victim losses from a total of 298,728 complaints about various internet-related crimes that were reported during the year. Looking specifically at ransomware, the FBI received 2,673 complaints, with a total of $2.4 million in losses.

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