Though a growing problem, ransomware is still nowhere as prevalent as other threats, Microsoft says.
The recent proliferation of ransomware attacks has significantly heightened the need for enterprises to be vigilant about the threat. But there’s little need for panic.
For the moment, at least, enterprises are less likely to encounter ransomware than almost any other kind of malware like Trojans, worms and viruses, according to a new Microsoft report.
Telemetry data in the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report, collected from millions of systems running Microsoft real-time security software, shows that ransomware was detected in less than 1% of systems worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2015. That was up slightly from 0.26% in the third quarter and 0.16% in Q2 2015.
Worrying as that growth was, the infection rates for ransomware were still significantly smaller than almost any other type of malware. For instance, the percent of systems reporting Trojans in the second quarter of last year at 4.45% was 28 times higher than the percentage of systems reporting ransomware.
