The State of Ransomware in Manufacturing and Production 2021

Based on an independent survey of 438 IT decision makers, this report shares new insights into the current state of ransomware in the manufacturing and production sector. It provides a deep dive into the prevalence of ransomware in manufacturing and production, the impact of those attacks on victims, the cost of ransomware remediation, as well as how the sector stacks up in terms of its future expectations and readiness against these attacks.

About the survey

Sophos commissioned a global survey of 5,400 IT managers across 30 countries by the independent research house Vanson Bourne. Respondents came from a wide range of sectors, including 438 respondents from the manufacturing and production sector. The survey was conducted in January and February of 2021.

50% of the respondents in each country came from organizations with 100 to 1,000 employees, and 50% from organizations with 1,001 to 5,000 employees. The 438 manufacturing and production IT decision makers came from all geographic regions surveyed: the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific.

Key findings in manufacturing and production

• 36% of manufacturing and production organizations were hit by ransomware in the last year
• 49% of organizations hit by ransomware said the cybercriminals succeeded in encrypting their data in the most significant attack
• 19% of those whose data was encrypted paid the ransom to get their data back in the most significant ransomware attack – the lowest payment rate of all sectors
• 68% of those whose data was encrypted used backups to restore data
• 55% of data was restored, on average, after paying the ransom, leaving nearly half inaccessible (based on the experiences of 15 respondents)
• 89% of manufacturing and production organizations have a malware incident recovery plan
• The average bill for rectifying a ransomware attack in the manufacturing and production sector, considering downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, lost opportunity, ransom paid, and more, was US$1.52 million