29% of banks also admit to paying the full ransom after a ransomware attack

One in ten (11%) finance companies would take over a month to fully recover from a successful ransomware attack, finds research conducted byVeritas Technologies,  a global leader in data protection, availability and insights. Meanwhile, one in 30 financial organisations believe they would never fully recover from a successful ransomware attack.

This spells bad news for banks, given the banking and finance industry is the third most likely sector to be hit by ransomware attacks, according to the global research. Over three-fifths (63%) of financial organisations have been hit by a ransomware attack, compared to an average of 42% across all industries. Of those financial businesses hit by an attack, a third (29%) paid the full ransom.

Across all sectors, businesses are turning towards to cloud services for digital transformation. The research revealed that the growing cloud complexity is leaving companies at risk in ransomware attacks.

Despite this, the banking and finance industry is not placing high importance on assessing its ransomware disaster recovery plans. Close to one in ten (7%) have never even tested their disaster recovery plan. While, nearly 40% of companies in this sector admit that it’s been over three months since they last tested their plans, below the global business average of 31%.

COVID-19 has, however, seen banks increase their IT security budgets, with over half (57%) noting an increase. Across industries, this is 10% higher than the average of 46%.

Matthew Banks, Senior Enterprise Technical Manager at Veritas Technologies said: “Financial organisations and banks will always be targets for hackers due to its implicit wealth as well as the valuable private and financial data they hold. And we’ve seen the impact that a successful ransomware attack can have on businesses..

“The banking and finance industry currently has the third simplest cloud structure of all the industries surveyed, with only 6% using over 20 cloud services. However, with more organisations in the sector expected to utilise cloud solutions to help their businesses adapt to the world of digital baking and the evolving demands of the customer, IT leaders must understand how best to manage complex cloud infrastructure. Investment must be made into IT security and disaster recovery plans must be put in place, and constantly tested and adapted. Failing to prepare and failing to keep pace with growing cloud complexity is already leaving the financial sector open to attack.”