On Saturday, February 14th, 2026, ControlAltProtect's sponsored NASCAR driver Mason Maggio was set to race at the Daytona International Speedway in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. Starting this season with more experience, greater preparation, and more sponsorships, along with his huge heart for racing, his talent, and his strong will, Mason was optimistic about the outcome of the race.

Just after the green flag dropped, in lap one, an incident occurred causing significant damage to his vehicle, making him the first person to DNF from the race. Yep. Dead last. Zero points earned. Which puts him in a poor starting position for his next race. Our hearts broke for him. Mason didn't come in last because he wasn't prepared. He came in last because sometimes the unforeseen just happens.

Fighting what feels like a losing battle

This blog is about facing challenges and fighting what sometimes seems to be a losing battle in the race to defeat hackers. Many business owners perceive that they must go into debt to fight a good cyber fight, so they do nothing to secure their network. Although they're protecting their margins, they're left defenseless against data theft and ransomware. They aren't prepared for unforeseen circumstances.

We've all been faced with spending what it takes to protect our assets, our livelihoods. We all carry liability insurance, homeowners, life and auto insurance, maybe even cyber insurance. But for some reason, coming off the cash to protect your systems becomes personal. You ask yourself, "How much should I spend? Will my cyber insurance company even honor a claim if I'm not doing what it takes to protect my data?" Sadly, the answer is usually no.

The cost of a comeback

In Mason's case, with a packed race schedule, he will have several more opportunities to move up in points. There's hope for a comeback this year.

For a business owner left unprotected from cyber criminals, there's no coming back from a cyber-attack without it costing enough to put many out of business. Paying a ransom (which is itself a crime) and having to notify your customers that their data was compromised (not notifying them is also a crime), all because you didn't have proper measures in place. Because you thought it would cost a lot to secure your data, you decided to roll the dice and bet you wouldn't get hacked until you could afford cyber security. So instead of spending what a new employee might cost annually, you get to spend upwards of a quarter of a million dollars on remediation, downtime, and lost productivity and revenue. You can't even put a price on loss of reputation.

If you had spent the dollars per year for cyber security, business continuity, and backup and disaster recovery, you could have avoided all the mess. You could have highlighted to your customers that they're doing business with someone who cares about their data. You could have spread that cost across your customers instead of mailing them a letter that effectively says, "We didn't value your business enough to protect your data."

Where the race begins

In the race to defeat hackers, we start with a Technology Threat Assessment to determine where you are with your security posture. It's not a sales call. It's an in-depth consulting and engineering engagement.

In this race to defeat hackers, we must be more like Mason: be ready for just about anything, have a strategy in place to keep on racing, and continue to do business without missing a beat, even if things don't go as planned.