2 in 3 healthcare firms, including insurers, hit by ransomware

Two-thirds (67%) of healthcare organisations surveyed were impacted by ransomware attacks in the past year, up from 60% in 2023, according to Sophos.

This is from results of a sector survey that is part of a broader, vendor-agnostic survey of 5,000 cybersecurity/IT leaders conducted between January and February 2024 across 14 countries and 15 industry sectors.

Findings show that the rising rate of ransomware attacks against healthcare institutions contrasts with the declining rate of ransomware attacks across sectors; the overall rate of ransomware attacks fell from 66% in 2023 to 59% in 2024.

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Alongside an increase in the rate of ransomware attacks, the healthcare sector reported increasingly longer recovery times. Only 22% of ransomware victims fully recovered in a week or less, a considerable drop from the 47% reported in 2023 and 54% in 2022. 

In addition, 37% took more than a month to recover, up from 28% in 2023, reflecting the increased severity and complexity of attacks.

“While we’ve seen the rate of ransomware attacks reach a kind of “homeostasis” or even declining across industries, attacks against healthcare organisations continue to intensify, both in number and scope,” said John Shier, field CTO, Sophos.

Shier said the highly sensitive nature of healthcare information and need for accessibility will always place a target on the healthcare industry from cybercriminals. 

“Unfortunately, cybercriminals have learned that few healthcare organisations are prepared to respond to these attacks, demonstrated by increasingly longer recovery times,” he added. “These attacks can have immense ripple effects, as we’ve seen this year with major ransomware attacks impacting the healthcare industry and impacting patient care.”

Shier said that in order to fight these adversaries, healthcare organisations must adopt a more proactive, human-led approach to threat detection and response, combining advanced technology with continuous monitoring to stay ahead of attackers.

The study also found that the mean cost of recovery in a healthcare ransomware attack was $2.57 million in 2024, up from $2.2 million in 2023 and double the 2021 cost.

More than half (57%) of healthcare institutions that paid the ransom ended up paying more than the original demand.

Compromised credentials and exploited vulnerabilities were tied for the No. 1 root cause of attack, each accounting for 34% of attacks.

Almost all (95%) of healthcare organisations hit by ransomware in the past year said that cybercriminals attempted to compromise their backups during the attack.

Organisations whose backups were compromised were more than twice as likely to pay the ransom to recover encrypted data (63% vs. 27%).

Insurance providers are heavily involved in ransom payments, contributing in 77% of cases. Also, 19% of total ransom payment funding comes from insurance providers.