Report: Global Ransomware Costs Forecast to Exceed $8B in 2018

TAMPA BAY, FL | Jul 9, 2018

Report sponsored by KnowBe4 and conducted by Cybersecurity Ventures finds ransomware to attack a business every 14 seconds by the end of 2019

KnowBe4, provider of the world’s largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, today announced a new report on ransomware, which found that global damages related to ransomware are predicted to exceed $8 billion in 2018.

With the growing proliferation of ransomware, organizations are struggling to outpace the criminals. In 2019, Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that global damages related to ransomware will reach $11.5 billion. The research findings also predicted that ransomware will attack a business every 14 seconds by the end of 2019. Sonicwall just reported a 300% year-over-year growth in ransomware.Cybersecurity Ventures

“Ransomware is the new normal; it’s here to stay and is growing in sophistication and frequency,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO, KnowBe4. “Bad guys choose to hack people if they can; they are the softest target and easily manipulated with social engineering. Organizations need to protect their infrastructure with a new security layer: a human firewall.”   

Not only is ransomware causing financial damages, attacks are also putting human life and wellness at risk as they disrupt medical services and government services such as 911 call centers and emergency dispatching services. New-school security awareness training is a proven method to significantly reduce the risk of these types of attacks.

About KnowBe4

KnowBe4 empowers the modern workforce to make smarter security decisions every day. Trusted by more than 70,000 organizations worldwide, KnowBe4 is the pioneer of digital workforce security, securing both AI agents and humans. The KnowBe4 Platform provides attack simulation and training, collaboration security, and agent security powered by AIDA (Artificial Intelligence Defense Agents) and a proprietary Risk Score. The platform leverages 15 years of behavioral data to combat advanced threats including social engineering, prompt injection, and shadow AI. By securing humans and agents, KnowBe4 leads the industry in workforce trust and defense.