Besides accounting for 55 per cent of cyber breaches from September 2020 to December 2021, ransomware attacks “are typically the costliest incidents in terms of the response process, operational downtime and reputational risks,” Blake, Cassels and Graydon reported. The law firm compiled information from cases its own cybersecurity team handled and included in disclosures by companies traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. (The Logic)

Talking point: Bad actors who break into systems and either steal or encrypt data so its owners can’t use it are getting more sophisticated, Blakes’s report said. Some are offering “ransomware as a service,” licensing their security exploits to paying customers who have particular targets in mind. They’re also increasingly adding denial-of-service attacks that overload servers when victims try to restore data from backups. Just 17 per cent of cybersecurity incidents get reported to law enforcement and victims of ransomware attacks pay the datanappers off more than half the time, Blakes said.