In the third quarter of 2024, the average ransom payment for cyberattacks in the United States amounted to over 479 thousand U.S. dollars, down from 850 thousand U.S. dollars in the third quarter of 2023. This figure had increased significantly since the first quarter of 2022, when the average amount of ransom payments in the U.S. was approximately 212 thousand U.S. dollars.

In 2023, the U.S. retail and hospitality industry faced the highest ransom demand, 5.7 million U.S. dollars. Following closely behind, the energy and technology industry reported an average initial ransom demand of 5.4 million U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, organizations in the manufacturing industry ranked fifth, with an average initial ransom demand of 3.35 million U.S. dollars.

In 2024, 0.14 percent of the total cryptocurrency transaction volume was identified as illicit. This figure is based on the transactions involving cryptocurrency addresses known to be controlled by ransomware actors. The highest reported share of illegal transactions between 2017 and 2022 was in 2019, 1.9 percent.