Manufacturing industry worldwide: Kaspersky reveals USD18bn losses from ransomware attacks

ISLAMABAD: A leading cybersecurity company has made an astonishing disclosure that ransomware attacks on manufacturing organizations worldwide have a financial impact of over USD 18 billion during January to September 2025.

Kaspersky in collaboration with VDC Research has announced that in the first three quarters of 2025 ransomware attacks on manufacturing organizations could have generated over USD 18 billion in losses. This figure reflects just the direct cost of an idle workforce during downtime, with overall operational and financial impacts far exceeding this amount.

Estimations were made across APAC, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, CIS and LATAM based on the share of manufacturing organizations where ransomware attempts were detected and prevented, the total number of manufacturing organizations in each region, average downtime hours after real attacks, average number of employees per organization and average hourly pay.

According to Kaspersky Security Network from January to September 2025, the Middle East (7pc) and Latin America (6.5pc) led the regional rankings in terms of ransomware detections in manufacturing organizations. APAC (6.3pc), Africa (5.8pc), CIS (5.2pc) and Europe (3.8pc) followed. All of these attacks were blocked by Kaspersky solutions. The estimation of potential losses showed the financial impact if these attacks succeeded.

When ransomware hits, production lines halt, triggering immediate revenue losses from an idle workforce and longer-term shortfalls from reduced output. The average attack lasts 13 days (based on Kaspersky Incident Response Report). As a result, idle labor costs from ransomware in the first three quarters of 2025 could have reached USD 11.5 billion in APAC, USD 4.4 billion in Europe, USD 711 million in LATAM, USD 685 million in the Middle East, USD 507 million in CIS and USD 446 million in Africa region.

Actual business losses could have been significantly higher when factoring in supply-chain disruptions, reputational damage, and recovery expenses, the company stated.

“Our research provides an estimation of the financial impact that ransomware may have had on manufacturing worldwide. The growing complexity of manufacturing environments, along with widening expertise gaps and ongoing labor challenges, makes it difficult for most organizations to manage cybersecurity effectively, but failure to do so may result in financial losses – followed by reputational blows as well. Partnering with proven cybersecurity vendors is paramount for effective IT, OT and IIoT protection,” comments Jared Weiner, Research Director, Industrial Automation & Sensors at VDC Research.

Kaspersky encourages organizations to follow best practices to safeguard from ransomware.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025