In South Africa, 42% of ransomware victims pay the ransom to restore access to their data. Yet for 19% of those, paying the ransom did not guarantee the return of stolen data. However, as public awareness of potential cyber threats grows there is the reason for optimism in the fight against ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware which criminals use to extort money. It holds data to ransom using encryption or by locking users out of their device. According to a report from Kaspersky, whether they paid or not, only 24% of victims were able to restore all their encrypted or blocked files following an attack. 61% lost at least some files, 32% lost a significant amount, and 29% lost a small number of files. Meanwhile, 11% who did experience such an incident lost almost all their data. “Thi...