If you still picture ransomware as a locked screen and a countdown timer, 2026 has already moved past you. The attackers hitting Central Texas businesses this year steal your data first and encrypt it second, which means paying for a decryption key no longer ends the problem. The IT companies handling ransomware recovery every week are seeing the same pattern, and it changes what a real recovery plan has to include.
What Is at Stake
The clearest example landed in the headlines just this month. Coca-Cola disclosed that a ransomware attack against its Fairlife dairy subsidiary disrupted production across the United States, with the attackers claiming to have exfiltrated roughly one terabyte of confidential data and setting a public leak deadline to pressure payment. That is double extortion in plain sight: encrypt the systems so operations stall, and steal the data so there is a second threat even if backups restore everything cleanly.
This is not a one-off tactic anymore. Recent industry research shows that 96 percent of ransomware incidents now involve data theft alongside encryption, and the fastest attackers move from initial access to exfiltration in about 72 minutes. For a small or mid-sized business, that speed means the old assumption, we will notice something is wrong before they get anything valuable, no longer holds. Add in that 88 percent of small and mid-sized business breaches now involve ransomware, and the average recovery cost, once you count downtime, notification, and lost customers, tops 350,000 dollars, and the stakes for any owner in 2026 are hard to overstate.
Why Central Texas Businesses Face This Challenge
Austin's growth is exactly what makes it attractive to attackers. A fast-growing metro full of newer companies, expanding staff, and rising deal flow is a target-rich environment, and the same pattern shows up in Round Rock, Georgetown, and New Braunfels as those communities absorb Austin's overflow growth. One local example that made the rounds this year: an Austin agency paid 25,000 dollars to get its data back, only to discover the exfiltrated files still gave the attackers leverage.
Compounding the risk, roughly 83 percent of small businesses nationally carry no cyber insurance at all. Without a policy, there is no claims adjuster helping negotiate, no breach coach lined up, and no fund set aside for the recovery costs. That leaves the business owner making high-stakes decisions alone, often for the first time, in the middle of an active incident. This is precisely where working with established IT companies before an attack, not during one, makes the difference between a bad week and a business-ending event.
There is also a generational gap in how many owners think about this risk. Many Central Texas business leaders built their companies before ransomware existed as a category, and their mental model of a computer problem is still a slow server or a broken printer, not a criminal organization with a leak site and a countdown clock. That gap between the threat as it exists today and the threat as owners remember it from a decade ago is exactly what attackers are counting on. Closing it does not require becoming a security expert; it requires a plan built by people who track this threat professionally, so the business owner can stay focused on running the business.
How CTTS, One of the IT Companies Central Texas Owners Trust, Helps You Prepare
CTTS builds ransomware recovery plans for Central Texas businesses around one principle: assume the data walks out the door before you know an attacker is inside. That reframes disaster recovery from purely a restore-the-servers exercise into a plan that also addresses data exposure, client notification, and reputational response. Among the IT companies serving the region, this dual focus, systems recovery plus data breach response, is what separates a plan that survives contact with a real incident from one that only looks good on paper.
In practice, that means immutable, offsite backups that an attacker cannot encrypt or delete even with administrator credentials, a documented recovery time objective and recovery point objective that ownership has actually agreed to, and a tested plan for the first 24 hours that covers systems, communications, and legal obligations together. It also means periodic tabletop exercises so that when an incident happens, the leadership team is executing a rehearsed plan instead of improvising. Backup and disaster recovery services pair directly with a cybersecurity services engagement so systems recovery and data breach response are planned together rather than as two separate projects.
Building a Ransomware Recovery Plan That Assumes Data Theft
Start With Immutable, Tested Backups
A backup that can be altered or deleted by whoever holds administrator credentials is not a real safety net; it is one more asset for an attacker to encrypt or wipe. Immutable backup adoption has climbed to roughly 62 percent among small and mid-sized businesses working with a managed provider, and for good reason: it is the one piece of the plan that keeps working even after the attacker has already been inside for weeks.
Backups also need to be tested on a schedule, not just taken. A backup nobody has restored from is a hypothesis, not a plan. Central Texas businesses should know their actual recovery time, not the vendor's marketing number, because that number is what determines how many days of downtime a real incident costs.
Build the Data Theft Response Into the Plan, Not as an Afterthought
Because the majority of ransomware incidents now involve exfiltration, a recovery plan that only restores systems is addressing half the problem. Businesses need a documented process for determining what was likely accessed, who has to be notified under Texas and federal breach notification rules, and how client-facing communication will be handled before the attackers post a leak deadline of their own.
This is also where legal counsel and cyber insurance, if the business has it, need to be looped in early rather than after the attacker's deadline has already made the decision urgent.
Run the Tabletop Before You Need It
Every business owner believes their team knows what to do until the first real incident proves otherwise. A tabletop exercise, walking the leadership team through a simulated ransomware event with data exfiltration in the scenario, surfaces the gaps: who actually has the authority to approve a ransom conversation, who calls clients, who talks to the press if it comes to that. Running this once a year turns a chaotic first 24 hours into a rehearsed one.
Choose Recovery Partners Before the Incident, Not During
Negotiators, forensic investigators, and breach counsel are far more effective when they already understand your environment. Central Texas business owners working with IT companies that maintain those relationships in advance consistently recover faster than those scrambling to find help mid-incident, when every hour of downtime is compounding cost. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency publishes a StopRansomware guide that lays out the same before, during, and after framework, and it is worth reviewing even if your business already works with an MSP.
Vendor relationships matter here too. Many small businesses discover mid-incident that a key software vendor or cloud partner has its own weak security practices, which is how a ransomware event at one company becomes a data exposure event for its customers as well. Vetting the security posture of critical vendors, and knowing in advance which of them touch sensitive data, closes a gap that a purely internal recovery plan will miss.
Take the Next Step
Ransomware has changed. If your recovery plan has not changed with it, the gap between what you think will happen and what actually happens in an incident could cost far more than the ransom itself. CTTS works with Central Texas business owners to build recovery plans that account for both encryption and data theft, so a bad day does not become a business-ending one.
Schedule a free strategy session with CTTS today and let us pressure-test your current plan before an attacker does.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is double extortion ransomware?
Double extortion ransomware is an attack where criminals both encrypt a victim's systems and steal sensitive data before doing so, then threaten to leak the stolen data publicly even if the victim can restore from backup. This gives attackers a second point of leverage beyond simply locking files, which is why backups alone no longer guarantee a clean recovery. In 2026, the large majority of ransomware incidents now include this data theft component.
Do I still need backups if attackers are stealing data anyway?
Yes, backups remain essential because they are still the fastest and most reliable way to restore operations and avoid paying a ransom for a decryption key. What has changed is that backups now need to be paired with a data breach response plan, since restoring systems does not undo the exposure of stolen data. Immutable, offsite backups that attackers cannot alter or delete are the current standard for Central Texas small and mid-sized businesses.
How much does a ransomware recovery actually cost a small business?
Recovery costs for small and mid-sized businesses now commonly exceed $350,000 once downtime, forensic investigation, notification requirements, and lost customers are factored in, and some incidents run well beyond that. The ransom demand itself is often the smallest part of the total cost. Businesses without cyber insurance, which describes roughly 83 percent of small businesses nationally, absorb these costs directly rather than through a claim.
Contact CTTS today for IT support and managed services in Austin, TX. Let us handle your IT so you can focus on growing your business. Visit CTTSonline.com or call us at (512) 388-5559 to get started!