Ransomware Resilience in 2026: What Cybersecurity and IT Leaders Need to Get Right
Recovery Point’s experts break down the key points and takeaways from Gartner’s IT Resilience Survey for 2026: Ransomware Recovery and Readiness.
Backup, Business Continuity, Cleanroom, Cyber Resilience, Disaster Recovery, Gartner, Ransomware, Ransomware Recovery
As ransomware attacks become more sophisticated, recovery is no longer just a function of IT operations; it’s a cornerstone of business continuity, regulatory compliance, and cyber risk management.
According to the new Gartner IT Resilience Survey for 2026: Ransomware Recovery and Readiness, many organizations believe they’re prepared to recover from ransomware. But the data tells a more sobering story: while foundational tools are widely implemented, advanced recovery capabilities, especially those that enable clean, fast, and verifiable recovery, remain underdeveloped in most enterprises.
For cybersecurity, IT, and infrastructure leaders, this report offers both a reality check and a roadmap. In this article, Recovery Point’s experts break down the key points and takeaways from Gartner’s latest report on resilience.
1. The “IRE Theater” Problem
One of the most revealing findings from the survey is that 78% of organizations report having implemented, or are in the process of implementing, Isolated Recovery Environments (IREs). However, 53% of those organizations lack immutable backups and/or golden images, which are key prerequisites for clean recovery.
“Even among organizations implementing IREs, nearly half may lack the fundamental building blocks necessary for effective isolated recovery.”
— Gartner IT Resilience Survey for 2026
This raises critical questions for recovery planning:
- Are your backups immutable and ransomware-resistant?
- Can you deploy clean, pre-validated system images during recovery?
- Is your IRE truly operational, or is it just a segmented network?
2. Automation is Rising, But is Still Uneven
While 68% of organizations report using backup software with automation features, only 35% have automated the rebuilding of business applications using tools like Infrastructure as Code (IaC) in place of manual processes. Another 36% are still in the implementation phase.
This gap matters. The faster you can recover not just data, but full application stacks, the lower your risk of prolonged downtime and reinfection.
Key considerations:
- Can you automate provisioning of infrastructure and applications during recovery?
- Are repeatable recovery tasks still manual, or are they orchestrated end-to-end?
- Is your team prepared to recover at scale, with speed and assurance?
3. Budget and Staffing Constraints Undermine Recovery Goals
Gartner’s survey highlights that 47% of respondents cite a lack of budget and 45% cite a lack of people as top challenges in building effective IREs.
This is especially problematic for organizations with longer recovery time objectives (RTOs), where resource limitations are more acute, which creates a vicious cycle of underinvestment and vulnerability.
Strategic questions for leadership:
- Are we investing smartly, or just spreading limited resources too thin?
- Would a managed recovery partner be more cost-effective than building in-house?
- Are we confident that our current recovery capabilities will meet compliance expectations in a real-world event?
4. Business Involvement is a Critical Success Factor
The report draws a direct correlation between business involvement in defining RTOs and the implementation of advanced recovery capabilities like IREs.
Organizations that collaborate with business leadership on recovery planning RTOs are 7 percentage points more likely to have implemented an IRE compared to those where RTOs are defined solely by IT.
“When business leadership is engaged in defining recovery objectives, they are more likely to support the investment and effort required for robust isolation.”
— Gartner IT Resilience Survey for 2026
This reinforces a growing truth: recovery is no longer just IT’s problem; it’s instead a business resilience issue.
What This Means for 2026 and Beyond
Many enterprises have successfully implemented foundational recovery tools. But ransomware attackers are evolving by targeting backup systems, evading detection, and disrupting complex infrastructure with surgical precision.
To protect against this, organizations need recovery strategies that are:
- Isolated (truly separated from production environments)
- Immutable (resistant to tampering and encryption)
- Validated (tested regularly under real-world conditions)
- Automated (orchestrated from infrastructure to application layer)
- Business-aligned (anchored to RTOs that reflect real risk)
Anything less leaves you exposed.
How Recovery Point Bridges the Readiness Gap
At Recovery Point, we’ve built our services specifically to address the gaps Gartner identified:
| Challenge Highlighted by Gartner | How Recovery Point Solves It |
| Isolated Recovery Environments (IREs) lacking critical components | Purpose-built, production-grade cleanrooms/IREs with immutable backup integration and golden image provisioning |
| Manual, fragmented recovery workflows | End-to-end recovery orchestration using automation and Infrastructure as Code processes |
| Budget and staffing constraints | Fully managed resiliency services, reducing internal burden and operational complexity |
| Misalignment with business needs | Engagement models including IT and business leaders, aligning recovery priorities with enterprise risk objectives |
Our comprehensive cyber and business resilience services have one goal: to help you recover cleanly, quickly, and confidently.
Are You Recoverable?
The next ransomware attack isn’t a matter of if, it’s when. The question is whether your recovery plan is real or just theater.
Gartner’s survey makes it clear: having tools isn’t the same as having a strategy. Recovery Point is here to help you close that gap with proven, purpose-built recovery solutions designed for today’s threats.
READY TO ASSESS YOUR RECOVERY READINESS?
👉Take our Cyber Recovery Readiness Self-Assessment
📆Schedule a Resiliency Strategy Session
📄Download: 7 Signs Your Recovery Strategy Isn’t What You Think It Is
Contact us to connect with our team now.
Connect with us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), and Facebook.
Assess Your Risk
Are your backups actually recoverable? Self-assess whether your backup and recovery strategy can withstand a real-world ransomware attack with our quick survey.
