Fortinet, a global provider of broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, has unveiled the 2021 Global State of Ransomware Report. The survey reveals most organisations are more concerned about ransomware than other cyberthreats.
However, while the majority of organisations surveyed indicated they are prepared for a ransomware attack, including employee cyber training, risk assessment plans, and cybersecurity insurance, there was a clear gap in what many respondents viewed as essential technology solutions for protection and the technology that can best guard against the most commonly reported methods to gain entry to their networks.
John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO, Fortinet, said: “According to a recent FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape report, ransomware grew 1070% year over year. Unsurprisingly, organisations cited the evolving threat landscape as one of the top challenges in preventing ransomware attacks. As evidenced by our ransomware survey, there is a huge opportunity for the adoption of technology solutions like segmentation, SD-WAN, ZTNA, as well as SEG and EDR, to help protect against the threat of ransomware and the methods of access most commonly reported by respondents. The high amount of attacks demonstrates the urgency for organisations to ensure their security addresses the latest ransomware attack techniques across networks, endpoints, and clouds. The good news is that organisations are recognising the value of a platform approach to ransomware defence.”
Based on the technologies viewed as essential, organisations were most concerned about remote workers and devices, with Secure Web Gateway, VPN and Network Access Control among the top choices. While ZTNA is an emerging technology, it should be considered a replacement for traditional VPN technology. However, most concerning was the low importance of segmentation (31%), a critical technology solution that prevents intruders from moving laterally across the network to access critical data and IP. Likewise, UEBA and sandboxing play a critical role in identifying intrusions and new malware strains, yet both were lower on the list. Another surprise was secure email gateway at 33%, given phishing was reported as a common entry method of attackers.
