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Dental Practice Ransomware Recovery: Step-by-Step Guide
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Ezra Angelo
- • July 21, 2026
Ransomware recovery is the highest-stakes IT event a dental practice will ever face. The January 2026 Tampa Bay Dental Implants ransomware attack affected 6,400 patients. According to the Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, 48 percent of breaches now involve ransomware. The question is not whether Tampa Bay dental practices face this threat. It is whether they have a recovery plan before the attack happens or are improvising one during it.
Ekim IT Solutions is the dental-exclusive IT provider serving Tampa Bay from our office at 600 N Westshore Blvd, Suite 701, Tampa, FL 33609.
Here is the step-by-step ransomware recovery process Ekim IT Solutions follows for dental practices. Reading this before an attack is how you recover in hours instead of weeks.
Do not pay the ransom as a first response. Paying does not guarantee decryption. According to the Veeam 2025 Ransomware Trends Report, 81 percent of organizations that paid the ransom were able to recover data, but only after paying. The recovery success rate from backup restoration for practices with verified air-gapped or immutable backups is higher and does not fund criminal organizations.
Step 1: Isolate Immediately
The moment ransomware is detected, every device that is still running must be disconnected from the network. Pull ethernet cables. Disconnect wireless. Shut down the server. The goal is to stop the ransomware from encrypting more files and from reaching backup systems it has not yet touched. Do not wait to understand what is happening before isolating. Isolate first, investigate second. Every minute of continued network connectivity is additional encrypted data and additional backup destruction.
Step 2: Assess the Backup
The backup assessment is the most critical recovery step and must happen before anything else. These three actions are shuffled below. Use the arrows to put them in the order Ekim IT Solutions actually performs them, then check your order.
Step 3: Rebuild Clean and Restore
Do not restore onto a potentially compromised system. Format the server and rebuild the operating system from scratch before restoring the Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental database from the clean backup. Restoring onto a system that still contains ransomware components re-infects the data immediately. Ekim IT Solutions provisions a clean server environment for Tampa Bay practices recovering from ransomware before any backup data is restored.
Step 4: HIPAA Breach Notification
A ransomware attack that encrypts unencrypted patient records is presumed to be a reportable HIPAA breach. Florida's Information Protection Act requires notification to affected individuals within 30 days and to the Florida Attorney General for breaches affecting 500 or more Floridians within that same window. HIPAA requires notification to HHS OCR within 60 days for breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. The notification clock starts from the date the practice determines a breach occurred, not from the date of the attack.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ekim IT Solutions serves Tampa Bay from our office at 600 N Westshore Blvd, Suite 701. We build the recovery plan and put it in place before an attack, so you're never improvising when it matters most.
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- • July 21, 2026
