Dive Brief:

• Almost half of companies surveyed in a new poll from Sentinel One said they have fallen victim to a ransomware attack in the last year.

• But about 27% of respondents said the attacker was unable to successfully encrypt any files or data or the company they were able to replace encrypted files because a backup was held.

• Only 3% of respondents said they were unable to decrypt files the attacker successfully penetrated.

Dive Insight:

Ransomware has seen enormous growth this year. According to a November report from Kaspersky Lab, the number of internet users that encountered encrypting ransomware more than doubled in Q3 2016, and the number of people attacked by ransomware has consistently risen throughout 2016. 

Given the proliferation of malware and ransomware, it’s more important than ever for businesses to ensure employees are trained to recognize and avoid them as malicious encryptions often lurk behind phishing attacks.

But companies have grown wise to these attacks and appear to be more successfully defending against them by installing redundancy measures and isolated system backups kept safe from cyberattacks.