40 Ransomware Statistics for 2026: Costs, Trends & Attack Data

Global ransomware damage is projected to reach $74 billion in 2026, with the average attack costing organizations $5.08 million in downtime, remediation, and lost business. This page compiles 40 ransomware statistics from government agencies, security vendors, and insurance carriers. Use these numbers alongside our broader 75 cybersecurity statistics for 2026 to justify security investments, build board presentations, or inform your incident response planning.

Global Ransomware Damage

Ransomware has grown from a nuisance into a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry. Total damage includes ransom payments, downtime costs, data recovery, legal fees, regulatory fines, and long-term reputational damage.

Year	Global Ransomware Damage	Notable Trend
2021	$20 billion	Colonial Pipeline, Kaseya supply chain attack
2023	$34 billion	MOVEit, healthcare sector surge
2025	$57 billion	AI-assisted attacks, double extortion standard
2026 (projected)	$74 billion	Triple extortion, supply chain focus
2031 (forecast)	$265 billion	An attack every 2 seconds

1. $74 billion in global ransomware damage is projected for 2026.
2. Ransomware caused $57 billion in global damage in 2025.
3. Damage has grown 270% in five years (from $20B in 2021 to $74B projected in 2026).
4. By 2031, ransomware damage is expected to reach $265 billion annually.

Attack Costs & Ransom Payments

Cost Metric	Amount
Average total cost per ransomware incident	$5.08 million
Average ransom payment	$1 million
Median ransom payment	$200,000
Average data breach cost (all types)	$3.86 million
Largest known ransom paid (2025)	$75 million

5. The average total cost of a ransomware incident is $5.08 million (includes downtime, remediation, lost revenue, and legal costs).
6. The average ransom payment reached $1 million in 2025.
7. The median ransom payment is $200,000 — the gap between mean and median shows that a small number of multi-million-dollar payouts skew the average.
8. The average data breach cost across all attack types: $3.86 million (IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report).
9. The largest publicly confirmed ransom payment in 2025: $75 million (paid by a Fortune 50 company).
10. 46% of ransomware victims paid the ransom in 2025, down from 50% in 2024.
11. Of those who paid, only 65% recovered all their data.

Attack Trends & Frequency

12. Ransomware attacks rose 13% over the last five years.
13. 72% of ransomware attacks target large firms with 1,000+ employees.
14. A business will be attacked by ransomware every 2 seconds by 2031, up from every 11 seconds in 2021.
15. 70% of ransomware attacks now use double extortion (encrypt data + threaten to leak it).
16. Triple extortion (add DDoS or contact victims' customers) is used in 23% of attacks.
17. Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) platforms account for 67% of all ransomware attacks.
18. The average time from initial access to ransomware deployment dropped to 4.5 days, down from 9 days in 2023.
19. 34% of ransomware enters through vulnerable remote desktop protocol (RDP) connections.
20. Phishing emails are the initial vector in 41% of ransomware attacks.

Industry-Specific Impact

Industry	Average Breach Cost	YoY Change
Healthcare	$10.22 million	+9.2%
Financial Services	$5.97 million	+4.8%
Manufacturing	$4.47 million	+6.1%
Education	$3.65 million	+12.3%
Government	$2.60 million	+7.4%

21. Healthcare breaches cost $10.22 million on average — the highest of any industry, a 9.2% increase from $9.36M.
22. Financial services face $5.97 million average breach costs.
23. Education sector breach costs grew 12.3% YoY — the fastest increase of any industry.
24. Government organizations face lower absolute costs ($2.60M) but longer recovery times averaging 42 days.

Cyber Insurance & Ransomware

25. The global cyber insurance market: $22.5 billion by 2026.
26. 42% of insured organizations say their cyber insurance covers only a small part of actual ransomware damages.
27. 21% of cyber insurance claims are denied due to non-compliance with policy requirements (missing MFA, unpatched systems, etc.).
28. Organizations without MFA see 25-40% higher premiums or outright coverage denial.
29. 87% of cyber insurance applications now require proof of endpoint detection and response (EDR).

The Human Element

30. 88% of data breaches are caused by human error.
31. 17% of cloud-related breaches result from lack of multi-factor authentication.
32. Organizations with regular security training experience 70% fewer successful phishing attacks.
33. 82.6% of phishing emails contain AI-generated content.

MSP Security & Backup Statistics

Managed service providers play a critical role in ransomware prevention and recovery for SMBs and mid-market organizations.

34. Backup and disaster recovery is the second most popular MSP service after security monitoring.
35. 97% of MSPs offer cloud-based infrastructure management.
36. 76% of MSPs have dealt with at least one ransomware incident at a client site in the past 12 months.
37. MSP clients with tested backup and DR plans recover from ransomware in 4 days on average vs 24+ days without.
38. Organizations using managed security and compliance services reduce ransomware risk by 60% compared to self-managed environments.

Recovery & Downtime

39. Average downtime following a ransomware attack: 24 days.
40. Organizations with incident response plans reduce containment time by 74 days and save $2.66 million per breach.

What These Numbers Mean

The data is unambiguous: ransomware is growing in volume, sophistication, and cost. Three measures have the greatest impact on reducing risk and damage:

1. Test backups regularly. MSP clients with tested DR plans recover in 4 days instead of 24+. Backups that have never been tested are not backups — they are assumptions.
2. Deploy MFA everywhere. 17% of cloud breaches and a significant share of ransomware entries trace back to missing MFA. This is a low-cost, high-impact control.
3. Get 24/7 monitoring. Round-the-clock SOC services detect and contain ransomware before it spreads across the network. The cost of a managed SOC is a fraction of one ransomware incident.

Sources

Statistics compiled from: Cybersecurity Ventures Ransomware Report, IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025, Verizon DBIR 2025, FBI IC3 Report 2024, Coveware Quarterly Ransomware Reports, Coalition Cyber Claims Report 2025, Datto Global State of the Channel Ransomware Report, and Sophos State of Ransomware 2025. Figures marked as "projected" or "forecast" are based on published trend extrapolations.