Ransomware attacks are on the rise in the UK, potentially driven by the increasing numbers of victims willing to pay, according to the latest research from Cohesity.

The cybersecurity firm has released its Global Cyber Resilience Report 2024, which surveyed over 3,100 IT and security decision-makers across eight countries. The report revealed that 96% of respondents are concerned about a rise in cyber-attacks this year, with 59% expecting an increase of more than 50% compared to 2023.

According to the data, 53% of businesses in the UK experienced ransomware attacks in the past year, an increase of 38% from Cohesity’s 2023 report.

Of those affected, 59% admitted to paying a ransom, at an average of £870,000, with two organisations paying between £10m-£20m.

Interestingly, only 7% of UK respondents said they would refuse to pay, despite 66% reportedly having strict policies against making ransom payments.

Across the world, more businesses are paying bigger ransoms. Notably, 75% of respondents said their company would pay over $1 million (£756,000)  to recover data and restore business processes, with another 22% willing to pay over $3 million (£2.3 million).

That’s despite 77% saying their company had a ‘do not pay’ policy when it came to ransomware attacks.

In reality, the threat of exposing, or even permanently losing company data means that more firms are being forced to hand over cash to their attackers. The polling revealed that, globally, 69% of organisations had paid a ransom in the last year, and only 2% said they could recover data and restore business processes within 24 hours of an attack while over 30% would need between one and two weeks.

The industries considered most at risk of cyber-attack are, unsurprisingly, IT & technology firms (40%) and the banking and wealth management sector (27%). Media and telecommunications businesses are also thought to be vulnerable (24%), followed by government and public services (23%), and utilities (21%).

Following an attack, only 4% of businesses said they were able to recover all of their data, even though 45% said that their optimum recovery time was within two hours, and 98% saying it should happen at least within one day.

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“The most vital element of cyber resilience is the ability to recover business critical data that restores key business processes. But you can’t restore critical data, if you don’t secure it from external or internal threats first,” said Brian Spanswick, Cohesity’s CISO and CIO.

“The fact that almost 1 in 2 organisations are not implementing these controls to protect sensitive data is alarming and demonstrates a significant risk to an organisation’s cyber resilience.”

These latest findings back up recent research from Searchlight Cyber which found a striking increase in the number of active ransomware groups. According to Searchlight’s report, there are 56% more ransomware groups conducting attacks around the globe compared to the same period last year.