Americans are the most impacted by ransomware infections

Feb 18, 2016 15:14 GMT  ·  By

Ransomware has slowly become the biggest security threat on the Internet today, being the perfect mix between intrusive viruses, social engineering tricks, and a lucrative business model for the people behind these operations.

Studying how people react to ransomware may provide the best way to deal with these infections. In their most recent report, Ransomware: A Victim's Perspective, Bitdefender conducted a survey among 3,009 Internet users from the US, France, Germany, Denmark, the UK, and Romania.

The survey showed that ransomware has affected until now around 13.1 million Americans, which is about 4.1% of the country's total population, and theoretically, quite a big chunk when speaking about a computer virus. Additionally, ransomware infections also hit 3.1 million Germans, 2.2 million French, and 1.7 million UK citizens.

Half of American and Romanian ransomware victims paid the ransom

Asked if they paid to get rid of ransomware infections in the past, 50% of Americans said they did, as did 48% of Romanians, and 44% of British users. At the other end of the spectrum, only 14% of Danish users agreed to do so.

From the users who haven't faced a ransomware infection until now, the most willing to pay if something like this ever happens in the future are Romanians, 52% of respondents saying this would be an alternative they would consider.

To the same question, only 40% of Americans would be willing to pay to get rid of a ransomware infection, 36% of Germans, 32% of French, 31% of British, and only 30% of Danish users.

British people are willing to pay the most to get rid of ransomware

A trend observed in all the countries was that people value personal documents above everything else, followed by their photo albums. The least valued files were work-related documents, for which the smallest number of people (in each country) would pay to recover.

As for who's willing to dish out more cash to cyber-criminals, UK citizens answered that they were ready to part ways with $568 on average, followed by the Danish, who would pay $446, Americans with $350, Germans with $227, French with $203, and Romanians with $132.

But this statistic depends on each country's general income rate per capita, and that's why developed countries like the US, the UK, and states in Northern and Western Europe are generally targeted by ransomware campaigns to begin with.

Files for which users would pay to get rid of ransomware
Files for which users would pay to get rid of ransomware

Ransomware, the victim's perspective (4 Images)

Amount of users affected by ransomware in each country
Files for which users would pay to get rid of ransomwareUsers who have paid or are willing to pay to ged rid of ransomware
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