Houston Real Estate Firm Recovers from Ransomware in 4 Hours

A Houston real estate brokerage with 45 agents experienced a ransomware attack on a Wednesday afternoon. By end of business Wednesday, the attack was contained. By Thursday morning, all systems were fully operational. Zero ransom paid. This is how Datto backup and SpaceTown IT incident response made it possible.

The Ransomware Attack

A phishing email containing a malicious Excel attachment was opened by an agent on Wednesday at 2:15 PM. SentinelOne detected ransomware behavior at 2:17 PM and automatically quarantined the workstation — two minutes after execution. SpaceTown IT’s SOC received an alert at 2:18 PM. Investigation confirmed ransomware had encrypted files on the compromised workstation and was beginning to move to mapped network drives when SentinelOne terminated the process.

Containment and Recovery

SpaceTown IT engineers completed network investigation within 90 minutes confirming the attack was contained to one workstation. The compromised workstation was fully reimaged using Datto recovery in 2 hours. All network drives were verified intact — ransomware had encrypted approximately 2,100 files on the local workstation before being stopped. Files restored from Datto snapshot at 2:10 PM — 5 minutes before infection. Total data loss: 5 minutes. Total downtime: 4 hours for one workstation.

Cost Comparison

Potential cost if backup and EDR not in place: $100,000-$300,000 ransom demand, 2-5 days of full office downtime, forensics costs, potential breach notification for any client data on encrypted systems. Actual cost with SpaceTown IT: $0 ransom, 4 hours downtime for one workstation, no data loss, no breach notification required. The SpaceTown IT managed IT investment paid for itself in this single incident.

Protect Your Houston Real Estate Business

SpaceTown IT provides IT security for Houston real estate companies including real estate IT compliance and Datto backup. Call (832) 304-9748.