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Ransomware Attacks Reaches Highest Level as 66% of Organisations Surveyed fell Victim to adversaries – Sophos Report
Sophos, a global leader in innovating and delivering cybersecurity as a service, has released its annual “State of Ransomware 2023[LS1] ” report, which found that in 76% of ransomware attacks against surveyed organizations, adversaries succeeded in encrypting data. This is the highest rate of data encryption from ransomware since Sophos started issuing the report in 2020.
The survey also shows that when organizations paid a ransom to get their data decrypted, they ended up additionally doubling their recovery costs ($750,000 in recovery costs versus $375,000 for organizations that used backups to get data back).
Moreover, paying the ransom usually meant longer recovery times, with 45% of those organizations that used backups recovering within a week, compared to 39% of those that paid the ransom.
Overall, 66% of the organizations surveyed were attacked by ransomware—the same percentage as the previous year.
This suggests that the rate of ransomware attacks has remained steady, despite any perceived reduction in attacks.
“Rates of encryption have returned to very high levels after a temporary dip during the pandemic, which is certainly concerning.
“Ransomware crews have been refining their methodologies of attack and accelerating their attacks to reduce the time for defenders to disrupt their schemes,” said Chester Wisniewski, field CTO, Sophos.
“Incident costs rise significantly when ransoms are paid. Most victims will not be able to recover all their files by simply buying the encryption keys; they must rebuild and recover from backups as well.
“Paying ransoms not only enriches criminals, but it also slows incident response and adds cost to an already devastatingly expensive situation,” said Wisniewski.
When analyzing the root cause of ransomware attacks, the most common was an exploited vulnerability (involved in 36% of cases), followed by compromised credentials (involved in 29% of cases). This is in line with recent, in-the-field incident response findings from Sophos’ 2023 Active Adversary Report for Business Leaders.
Additional key findings from the report include:
· In 30% of cases where data was encrypted, data was also stolen, suggesting this “double dip” method (data encryption and data exfiltration) is becoming commonplace
· The education sector reported the highest level of ransomware attacks, with 79% of higher education organizations surveyed and 80% of lower education organizations surveyed reporting that they were victims of ransomware
· Overall, 46% of organizations surveyed that had their data encrypted paid the ransom. However, larger organizations were far more likely to pay. In fact, more than half of businesses with revenue of $500 million or more paid the ransom, with the highest rate reported by those with revenue over $5 billion. This could partially be due to the fact that larger companies are more likely to have a standalone cyber insurance policy that covers ransom payments
“With two thirds of organizations reporting that they have been victimized by ransomware criminals for the second year in a row, we’ve likely reached a plateau. The key to lowering this number is to work to aggressively lower both time to detect and time to respond.
“Human-led threat hunting is very effective at stopping these criminals in their tracks, but alerts must be investigated, and criminals evicted from systems in hours and days, not weeks and months. Experienced analysts can recognize the patterns of an active intrusion in minutes and spring into action.
“This is likely the difference between the third who stay safe and the two thirds who do not. Organizations must be on alert 24×7 to mount an effective defense these days,” said Wisniewski.
Sophos recommends the following best practices to help defend against ransomware and other cyberattacks:
· Strengthen defensive shields with:
o Security tools that defend against the most common attack vectors, including endpoint protection with strong anti-exploit capabilities to prevent exploitation of vulnerabilities, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to thwart the abuse of compromised credentials
o Adaptive technologies that respond automatically to attacks, disrupting adversaries and buying defenders time to respond
o 24/7 threat detection, investigation and response, whether delivered in-house or by a specialist Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider
· Optimize attack preparation, including making regular backups, practicing recovering data from backups and maintaining an up-to-date incident response plan
· Maintain good security hygiene, including timely patching and regularly reviewing security tool configurations
Data for the State of Ransomware 2023 report comes from a vendor-agnostic survey of 3,000 cybersecurity/IT leaders conducted between January and March 2023. Respondents were based in 14 countries across the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific. Organizations surveyed had between 100 and 5,000 employees, and revenue ranged from less than $10 million to more than $5 billion.
Paradigm Initiative (PIN), a pan-African digital rights and inclusion organisation, says it has engaged more than 1,300 stakeholders across 11 African countries through a series of forums, training sessions and policy dialogues aimed at strengthening digital rights, inclusion and online civic participation.
The organisation disclosed this in a statement, saying the engagements were carried out during the second quarter of the year through 26 programmes focused on election monitoring, judicial capacity building, digital literacy and policy development.
According to PIN, the initiative brought together policymakers, judges, lawyers, journalists, civil society organisations and community groups to promote a safer, more inclusive digital ecosystem across the continent.
The organisation said the programmes focused on safeguarding electoral integrity in Zambia, The Gambia and Ethiopia, while also strengthening the capacity of Nigeria’s judiciary on issues relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI), data privacy and digital evidence.
In partnership with Meta, PIN trained 35 judges in Lagos across two cohorts on privacy, data protection, AI and digital evidence.
It described the initiative as a significant step towards equipping Nigeria’s judicial officers to effectively handle legal disputes arising from an increasingly digital society.
The organisation also expanded its Digital Rights and Elections in Africa Meetings (DREAM) to Ethiopia, The Gambia and Zambia.
According to the statement, the programme equipped 110 civil society organisations, media professionals and election management bodies with skills to monitor digital rights violations and protect online civic spaces during election periods.
PIN further said its Digital Rights Academy (DRA) trained more than 100 lawyers, law students and digital rights advocates from Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
The academy focused on strengthening participants’ capacity in strategic litigation and promoting accountability for digital rights violations.
The organisation also hosted a Digital Policy Engagement Roundtable, bringing together 34 stakeholders, including organisations representing persons with disabilities, to discuss accessibility and inclusion in digital policy development.
It said Afrocities roundtables held in Nigeria and Tanzania attracted 80 participants who explored ways of improving informal workers’ access to digital social protection and financial services.
According to the statement, a ministerial roundtable in Zambia also aligned the country’s digital priorities with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) review process.
PIN said it also implemented the Digital Rights and Inclusion Board Learning Experience (DRIBLE) Ambassadors Training in Cameroon, Nigeria and Senegal.
The programme reached 315 participants and strengthened their capacity to deliver digital rights education through experiential learning approaches.
The organisation said the training improved participants’ understanding of digital rights and increased interest in practical digital rights education across communities.
PIN also highlighted the successful hosting of the Digital Rights and Inclusion Forum 2026 (DRIF26) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
The forum, themed “Building Inclusive and Resilient Digital Futures”, attracted 415 participants from more than 39 countries.
According to the organisation, the event brought together policymakers, civil society organisations, media professionals, academics, legal experts, technologists, human rights defenders and development partners to promote dialogue, partnerships and knowledge sharing on Africa’s digital future.
PIN said the engagements underscored the growing importance of collaborative efforts in advancing digital rights, promoting inclusion and strengthening digital governance across the continent
Airtel Africa, a telecommunications and mobile money services provider across 14 African countries, saved 9.1 million litres of diesel during its just ended 2025/2026 financial year, as part of efforts to drive responsible growth by minimising the environmental impact of its operations.
This was achieved by reducing reliance on diesel and increasing use of lower-carbon energy sources, including the conversion of 390 infrastructure sites to on-grid power during the year, thus improving efficiency and reducing emissions.
Airtel Africa CEO, Sunil Taldar highlighted this achievement during a media roundtable held in Lusaka, Zambia, where he presented the Group’s Sustainability Scorecard and progress towards building a more sustainable, inclusive and connected Africa.
Other initiatives to reduce Airtel Africa’s environmental impact during the year included promoting the circular economy, recycling 94% of total waste generated. These form part of Airtel Africa’s broader sustainability strategy, which seeks to create long-term value by balancing business growth with environmental stewardship, digital inclusion and socio-economic development.
Mr. Taldar emphasized that responsible growth remains central to Airtel Africa’s business strategy and is reflected in the company’s ability to extend services and opportunities to millions of people across the continent while advancing sustainability goals. Airtel Africa’s network now reaches 81.9% of the population across its markets, enabling greater access to connectivity, information, education and economic opportunities for individuals and communities.
The company recorded progress in its efforts to advance financial inclusion. Airtel Money now serves 54.1 million customers through a network of 2.4 million agents, making it one of Africa’s largest digital financial services ecosystems. Notably, 44.1% of Airtel Money customers are female, demonstrating the platform’s growing role in empowering women through access to secure, affordable and convenient financial services.
Beyond connectivity and financial inclusion, Airtel Africa, through its philanthropic arm, Airtel Africa Foundation continued to drive meaningful change across communities in the continent, investing US$6.2 million in priority programmes in four strategic areas namely Financial Inclusion, Education, Environmental Sustainability and Digital Inclusion.
Through its partnership with UNICEF, 3,296 schools have been connected to the free internet access, helping to bridge the digital divide and expand access to quality education reaching over 2 million learners and 38,868 teachers, while 64 zero-rated digital learning platforms enabled more than 11 million learners to access free digital educational content.
Also, during the year, more than 30,000 young people received digital skills training, while over 250 full undergraduate STEM scholarships were awarded through the Airtel Africa Tech Fellowship programme, helping to prepare the next generation of African innovators and technology leaders.
Microsoft has announced plans to cut about 4,800 jobs globally, representing approximately 2.1 per cent of its workforce, as part of a broader restructuring aimed at improving efficiency and competitiveness.
The layoffs include about 1,600 employees in the company’s Xbox gaming division.
The company said additional job cuts are expected later this year as it continues efforts to reposition its gaming business.
According to an internal memo from Xbox Chief Executive Officer, Asha Sharma, the restructuring is intended to “reset” the business amid increasing competition in the gaming industry.
“Our business today is not healthy,” Sharma said in the memo.
“We are operating at margins that are three to 10 times lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses.”
She attributed the challenges facing the division to rising production costs and intense competition in the gaming hardware market.
According to Sharma, the gaming industry is currently experiencing a severe hardware crisis as the cost of components used in gaming consoles continues to rise.
Xbox competes with gaming platforms such as Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s Switch.
The latest layoffs form part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to streamline operations and strengthen the long-term sustainability of its gaming business.
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