Beyond the headlines of stolen data and financial losses, a new report has shed light on the silent struggle of ransomware victims: their mental well-being.
The psychological and physiological impact ransomware attacks have on individuals must be addressed by all incident response stakeholders, a report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) outlined.
“When a ransomware attack impacts an organization, yes it causes disruption of services, but also there’s people within the organization, for example staff members, that all of a sudden cannot go home to their families,” noted Dr Jason Nurse, a University Reader in Cybersecurity at the University of Kent, when speaking to Infosecurity during Infosecurity Europe 2024.
Nurse contributed to the RUSI research paper, titled ‘Your Data is Stolen and Encrypted’: The Ransomware Victim Experience, published on July 2, 2024.
The new paper offers novel insights into the psychological experience of victims going through a ransomware incident, including what factors make their experience better or worse and what policy measures can help reduce harm to their well-being, Nurse explained.
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