Cyber Crime Is No Longer Just a Big-Company Problem

By Rose Peña

Most business owners we talk to assume cyber crime is someone else’s problem — a bank, a hospital, a tech company with thousands of employees. The reality is that small and mid-sized businesses are being targeted specifically because they are smaller. Less security infrastructure. Fewer dedicated IT resources. And often, a false sense that they are too small to be worth targeting.

They are worth targeting. And the attacks rarely look like what you see in movies.

The attack that looks completely ordinary

Here is how it typically starts. An employee receives an email that appears to come from a vendor or supplier. The logo looks right. The tone is professional. There is a link to review an invoice or reset a login. The employee clicks it.

In other cases, there is no login page at all. The invoice simply looks real, and someone in accounting processes it without realizing it is fraudulent. By the time anyone notices, the money is gone.

This is not science fiction. It is happening to small businesses across Texas right now — restaurants, contractors, salons, logistics companies, medical offices, and anyone else who handles payments or customer data.

Why 2026 is not the year to assume you are safe

Between phishing campaigns, credential harvesting, ransomware, and periods of elevated geopolitical tension affecting digital infrastructure, the advisory environment has remained active. Attackers are not slowing down. And many small businesses are still operating without multi-factor authentication on email, outdated software, or no real backup strategy in place.

A few basics your IT team or provider should have in place:

• Multi-factor authentication on email and any remote access tools
• Employee training on how to spot fake invoices, login prompts, and payment requests
• Regular software and system patching — especially anything internet-facing
• Email authentication protections (DMARC, DKIM, SPF) to prevent spoofing
• Current, tested backups — not just saved, but verified as restorable
• A clear process for verifying any change to payment instructions, no matter who seems to be asking

What insurance actually does here

Cyber liability coverage is not a substitute for good IT hygiene. If you do not have the basics above in place, a policy alone will not protect you — and some carriers will ask about those controls before they quote.

But coverage matters because even careful businesses can end up in a bad situation. A single compromised email account, one employee who clicks the wrong link, one system that was not patched in time — any of those can create real financial exposure.

Depending on the policy, cyber coverage may help with:

• Breach response costs — notifying affected customers, regulatory compliance
• Legal fees and liability if customer data was exposed
• Data restoration and recovery expenses
• Business interruption losses while systems are down
• Ransomware-related costs
• Crisis communication and PR support after an incident

The right policy depends on your business size, the kind of data you handle, and how your operations run. That is a conversation worth having before something happens — not after.

The point is not to panic. The point is to be prepared.

At BTP Insurance Services, we work with business owners across Texas who are managing real risk every day. Cyber exposure is part of that picture now — whether you run a small office, a service company, a medical practice, or any business that handles customer information or processes payments online.

We write cyber liability coverage for businesses across Texas — and we can walk you through what a policy would actually cover for your specific operation, what it costs, and what carriers will want to know before they quote. The conversation takes less time than you think.