More than 30% of AEC companies that are victimised by successful attacks fall victim again.
Egnyte, the leader in cloud content security and governance, today published a research report that analyses reported ransomware incidents among its Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) industry customers. While the attacks were not due to any vulnerabilities in the Egnyte platform and Egnyte customers are seeing a much lower number of attacks than publicly available sources, the research revealed that AEC firms are more than twice as likely to suffer from ransomware attacks than the rest of the industries analysed in the study. In addition, nearly a third (31%) of the companies that were victims of ransomware were attacked at least twice within a 16-month period, and a small number were attacked even more frequently than that.
Egnyte’s ‘State of Ransomware Research Report for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Report’ also found that companies with more than 1,000 employees were at the highest risk of attack, with the overwhelming majority of attacks targeting North American companies.
According to analysis by Egnyte, AEC firms have several factors working against them that may result in a higher rate of targeting. They are very schedule-driven, and any delays due to lack of access to their project files will significantly impact their costs, project timelines, and damage their brand reputations. In addition, AEC firms have a significant portion of their employees working remotely and many companies maintain a shared information environment with a range of outside contractors on job sites, which opens additional entry points for attackers to exploit. Couple those factors with tighter profit margins, and AEC firms may be more likely to pay a ransom to get up and running more quickly than other industries.
“The threat of ransomware continues to rise as economic and technological factors make AEC firms prime targets for threat actors,” commented Ronen Vengosh, VP of AEC, Egnyte. “Firms need to invest in a holistic defense program which is a combination of the right prevention technologies, content governance, and user-education so they can mitigate potential attacks and avoid any business disruptions.”
To read further findings and tips to protect your organisation from ransomware, download a full copy of the report here: https://pages.egnyte.com/aec-ransomeware-study.html
About Egnyte
Egnyte provides a unified cloud content governance solution for collaboration, data security, compliance, and threat detection for multicloud businesses. More than 16,000 organisations trust Egnyte to reduce risks and IT complexity, prevent ransomware and IP theft, and boost employee productivity on any app, any cloud, anywhere. Investors include GV (formerly Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Goldman Sachs. For more information, visit www.egnyte.com.
