Execs Won’t Pay Ransom Until they Get Hacked, Survey Finds

C-suite executives might say they won’t pay ransomware hackers, but a new survey found 4 in 10 paid when under attack.

The survey from Radware, a cybersecurity solutions firm, found 84 percent of U.S. and U.K. information technology executives said they would never pay a ransom, but among firms that had been attacked, 43 percent reported paying.

The average ransom paid was $7,500 in the U.S. and £22,000 in the U.K.

“It’s easy to say you won’t pay a ransom until your system is actually locked down and inaccessible,” said Carl Herberger, Radware’s Vice President of Security Solutions, in a news release. “Organizations that take proactive security measures, however, reduce the chance that they’ll have to make that choice.”

Back in February, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles paid $17,000 to a ransomware hacker who had seized control of the hospitals computer systems.

In addition to the responses to ransomware attacks, Radware’s executive survey found other threats weighing on the minds of senior executives including costs of cleaning up after a cyberattack and the reputational and operational costs on companies.

Read Radware’s 2016 Executive Application & Network Security Survey here.