Healthcare industry accounts for 88 percent of all ransomware attacks

In the newly released Security Engineering Research Team (SERT) Quarterly Threat Report for Q2 2016, Solutionary, a digital security company, analyzed the rates of ransomware attacks in all industries. Unsurprisingly, the healthcare industry topped the list.

In all industries analyzed the healthcare industry accounted for 88 percent of all ransomware attacks in Q2. The next highest effected industry was education with 6 percent, followed by finance at 4 percent.

“Healthcare has been a target for ransomware campaigns because the industry has often paid ransom to retrieve vital customer data quickly. Furthermore, healthcare organizations use an abundance of systems and devices that are crucial pivot-points for an attacker, and they can even be victims of ransomware themselves,” said Rob Kraus, director of research, Security Engineering Research Team, Solutionary. “The most important steps in protecting your company’s and your customers’ data from the growing malicious ransomware onslaught are ensuring that you have a robust backup and recovery process, and that your security software is up-to-date and able to detect the most recent ransomware variants. As the threat continues to evolve, it will be crucial for organizations to have defined incident-response procedures and proper detective and preventive controls in place to reduce ransomware’s impact.”