A survey conducted by Sophos revealed a decline in ransomware attacks on government organizations, highlighting that state and local government organizations reported the lowest rate of attacks of all sectors surveyed in 2024 at 51%, reports StateScoop.
Results also showed that 98% of ransomware attacks on state and local government organizations resulted in data encryption, a considerable increase from the 76% encryption rate reported in 2023. This is the highest rate of data encryption of all sectors studied in 2024. Ninety-nine percent of state and local governments that claimed to have been the targets of a ransomware attack in the past year said the cybercriminals also attempted to breach their backup data, with 50% saying those attempts were successful. The report also emphasized that more municipalities rely on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for recovery and protection from cyberattacks, while the mean cost in state and local government organizations to recover from a ransomware attack was $2.83M in 2024, more than double the $1.21M reported in 2023.
