An Analysis of Cyber Attack Costs on the Life Sciences Industry
2020 provided a perfect storm for cybercriminals to extort record amounts from vulnerable businesses. Recent reporting has identified life sciences companies as being particularly attractive to target as they have valuable intellectual property information and have enough funding to pay high ransom demands. The pharmaceutical industry is currently at the top of the most targeted industries for such attacks.
An Analysis of Cyber Attack Costs on the Life Sciences Industry
View the Infographic: The Costs of Ransomware in the Life Sciences Industry
It shouldn’t be a surprise since the trendlines for the practices of phishing, spearphishing, and ransomware attacks have been recording triple-digit rates of increase for a decade. The pandemic has only introduced more complexity and pressure on the systems we use to conduct business, and the criminals are taking full advantage.
[Infographic] The Costs of Ransomware in Life Sciences
Cyber attacks succeed in corporate environments with several commonalities:
- Reduced communication channels between colleagues
- Increased access to your network by third parties
- Sharing of data across networks with unknown security postures
- Targeting people too busy to properly scrutinize requests
Sound like 2020? With working from home and an increase in external access, corporate networks are even more vulnerable to malicious intrusions. This risk is especially acute in life sciences companies that are working overtime to get their therapies to market.
We’ve put together an infographic that outlines the facts about the costs of ransomware attacks on life science companies. Here are some of the key findings:
- Ransomware attacks increased by 150 percent in 2020, after doubling from 2018-2019, with a particular focus on life sciences and healthcare companies,
- The ransoms requested have increased from $5,000 in 2018 to $200,000 this year,
- 14 percent of ransomware attacks impacted the healthcare and life sciences sectors, and
- The average ransomware attack causes 15 business days of downtime and businesses lost around $8,500 per hour due to ransomware-induced downtime
The only way to prevent this from happening to you is by taking a proactive security posture. If you are looking for ways to protect your life sciences organization from an attack, The Fundamental Steps Every IT Admin Must Take to Prevent Ransomware is a must-read.
