Beazley Breach Insight: Ransomware severity and costs increase in 2020 Beazley Breach Insight: Ransomware severity and costs increase in 2020 New York, Dec. 16, 2020 — Specialist insurer Beazley has reported that ransomware attacks increased in terms of both severity and costs this year compared to 2019 and have become the biggest cyber threat facing organizations. According to the latest Beazley Breach Insights report, published today, the total cost of ransom payments doubled year-on-year through the first six months of 2020, based on incidents reported to Beazley’s in-house breach response team, BBR Services. The nature of ransomware attacks has also markedly changed in 2020. Today’s ransomware incidents are more likely to include a threat to release stolen data versus encryption alone. Threat actors increasingly have prior access to a network before deploying their attack, during which time they are working to escalate their privileges, move laterally through the network, and perform reconnaissance on the network and data stored on it. Frequently, they now also exfiltrate data and upload it to an external site, both to prove that they have access and to threaten exposure.