• 1 min read

The true cost of a ransomware attack, with and without BCDR

The ransom itself can be only a fraction of the total cost of a ransomware attack, with downtime, recovery, remediation, and legal obligations adding millions to the bill. Datto explains how a mature BCDR strategy can reduce downtime and…

What happened

Recent reporting highlighted the true cost of a ransomware attack, with and without bcdr. When businesses assess the impact of ransomware, the ransom payment often gets the most attention. the average total cost of a ransomware incident reached $5.08 million when downtime, remediation, legal work and business disruption are considered.

Why it matters

This matters because it has practical implications for defensive prioritisation, exposure management, or incident response rather than sitting as abstract security commentary. It is a direct signal about how compliance and policy expectations are being translated into implementation work.

Assessment

The strongest signal here is the tradecraft pattern and what it says about attacker adaptation, not just the single campaign or disclosure. In practice, that means teams should expect a higher bar for evidence, ownership, and implementation quality.

  • Review whether the issue, advisory, or attack pattern is relevant to your environment, suppliers, or exposed systems
  • Patch, harden, or validate logging and monitoring coverage where applicable
  • Translate the development into specific ownership, policy, and evidence requirements instead of leaving it as background policy tracking
  • Map the observed activity to existing detections and threat-hunting hypotheses instead of tracking it only as narrative reporting

Further reading