JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, November 25, 2025/APO Group: The first three quarters of 2025 witnessed ransomware attacks on manufacturing organisations that could have generated an excess of 18 billion in losses pertaining to the direct cost of an idle workforce during downtime with overall operational and financial impacts far exceeding this amount. This is according to Kaspersky and VDC Research.
The estimation was made across APAC, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, CIS, and LATAM based on the share of manufacturing organisations with the detection and prevention of ransomware attempts, coupled with the average downtime hours following the 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 at 7 percent and Latin America at 6.5 percent led the regional rankings in terms of ransomware detections in manufacturing organisations. While detections stood at 6.3 percent for APAC, Africa accounted for 5.8 percent, CIS 5.2 percent, and Europe 3.8 percent, respectively, which Kaspersky solutions says it has blocked.
When ransomware hits, production lines halt, triggering immediate revenue losses from an idle workforce and longer-term shortfalls from the reduced output. The average attack lasts for 13 days, according to the Kaspersky Incident Response Report where idle labour costs from ransomware in the first three quarters of 2025 could have been quantified at $11.5 billion in APAC, $4.4 billion in Europe, $711 million in LATAM, $685 million in the Middle East and $507 million in CIS, $446 million in Africa
The report also mentions that actual business losses could have been significantly higher when factoring in supply-chain disruptions, reputational damage, and recovery expenses.
“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 labour challenges, makes it difficult for most organisations to manage cybersecurity effectively, but the 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 Research Director, Industrial Automation & Sensors at VDC Research, Jared Weiner.
