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However, as a slight positive, 100% of South African organisations whose data was encrypted got their data back, slightly above the global average of 97%.<\/p>\n
Backups are the most common method for restoring data, with 76% whose data was encrypted getting their data via this approach.<\/p>\n
The amount of South Africans who had their data encrypted but still paid the ransom declined to 45% from 49% in 2022 – below the global average of 47%.<\/p>\n
However, one respondent to the survey said that they paid a $5 million (R94 million) or more ransom.<\/p>\n
When excluding ransom payments, the average bill for South African organisations was $0.75 million (R14 million), including downtime, people time, device cost, network cost, and lost opportunities.<\/p>\n
However, this is still below the global average of $1.82 million. (R34 million)<\/p>\n
82% of private sector organisations said that the attacks resulted in them losing business or revenue – the global average was 84%.<\/p>\n
53% of South African businesses said it took them a week to recover. 29% said it took up to a month, while 19% said it took between one and six months.<\/p>\n
98% of South African respondents said they had some form of cyber insurance, with 47% having a standalone cyber policy. Globally, only 91% have cyber coverage, with 47% also having a standalone policy.<\/p>\n
98% of South African organisations that purchased cyber insurance said that the quality of their defences directly impacted their insurance position.<\/p>\n
66% said that it affected their ability to access coverage, while 61% said it impacted the cost of their premiums.<\/p>\n
Main areas of attack\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Globally, the education sector was the most likely to experience a ransomware attack in the last year, with 80% of lower education respondents and 79% of higher education respondents being hit.<\/p>\n Sophus said that education struggles due to lower levels of resourcing and technology compared to other industries, with the data showing criminals are targeting their weaknesses.<\/p>\n IT, technology and telecoms reported the lowest level of attacks (50%).<\/p>\n