Cybersecurity provider Sophos has released a report entitled “The State of Ransomware 2026,” with pulled together responses from 2,158 survey participants. It reveals that ransom demands themselves are actually decreasing; but also revealed a shocking 48% of organisations whose data was encrypted paid their attackers.

The median ransom payment is now said to be $769,000, down from a neat $1 million from the previous year’s study, with the median demand dropping to $698,000. Interestingly, 51% of organisations that paid a ransom coughed up less than the demanded amount, which the report says is due to victims “often [being] successful in negotiating a lower amount than originally demanded.”

The lowest category was retail, with a 32% payment rate. 72% of local and state government organisations surveyed paid at least some of the demands. 56% of attacks succeeded in encrypting data, up 11% YOY.

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