Australian businesses are among the most likely to pay a ransom to retrieve or protect stolen information, with more than half admitting they have given money to online criminals.
The trend emerged despite mandatory ransomware payment reporting laws, and even though many companies considered themselves prepared to weather online attacks.
Cyber security firm Veeam released the findings from a global study on Thursday, which also found almost two in three Australian companies expected to be attacked online within the year.
The news comes one year after reporting ransomware payments became mandatory for firms with an annual turnover of more than $3 million or those handling critical infrastructure.
The report, called the Veeam Data Resilience Survey, canvassed more than 4200 business leaders in Australia, the UK, US, Germany, France and New Zealand about ransomware attacks.
