Cyberattack costs for US businesses up 80%

According to the Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2022, United States businesses report that cyberattack costs are up 80%, and nearly half (47%) suffered an attack in the past year. The prevalence of cyberattacks, ransomware, and supporting remote workers is causing IT professionals more anxiety than the pandemic (43%) or skills shortages (38%).

The median cost of an attack has nearly doubled in just a year: from $10,000 to $18,000 in 2022. While companies have adopted an increasing amount of cloud services, such as software as a service, the requirement of supporting APIs has skyrocketed. This effectively has increased the attack surface to defend.

Within the US, 40% of cyberattacks cost $25,000 or more to remediate. A vulnerability on a cloud-based corporate server was the most common entry point for hackers, according to the report.

Interestingly, the study found that while US companies have the highest levels of cyber maturity compared to surveyed European businesses, they are most likely to pay a ransom. Eighty-four percent of US companies that suffered a ransomware attack paid the bounty.

On a positive note, the the median cost of ransoms paid is down by 20%. While the report doesn’t state why, it is likely due to the crash in cryptocurrency prices. Cryptocurrency remains the most prevalent, preferred method of payment to hackers as it is somewhat obscure or can be “cleaned” through known services to cybercriminals. But even that has its faults, as we reported earlier.

Ransomware is not going away, and neither are cyberattacks. As long as companies continue to make mistakes—and it only takes one good social engineer attack as Uber knows too well—cyber crime will inevitably continue.