The holiday season is a time for celebration, with organisations hosting festive parties and employees spending time with family. However, as teams focus on year-end tasks, cybercriminals are planning their attacks.
The combination of increased online shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, followed by December festivities, creates the perfect opportunity for cyberattacks. For organisations, the holiday period is a prime target for cybercriminals, with the rise of remote work, and distracted teams, it is vital that businesses protect themselves from becoming victims of festive-season threats.
Festive Frauds: Why Holiday Scams Spike in December
Black Friday, the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, is a magnet for both eager consumers, as well as cybercriminals. Last year, the NCSC warned Black Friday bargain hunters of enhanced online scams after over 10 million pounds was lost were lost the previous year. On top of this, the increased use of AI-powered cyber-attacks is leading to more and more concern for individuals, amid the holiday season.
Over this period, organisations that rely on in-house IT teams may struggle to respond to threats promptly, as fewer security staff are online, leaving them vulnerable to threats. Not to mention that employees, busy with increased demand, might overlook essential cybersecurity practices.
While businesses are focused on preparing for holiday celebrations or managing year-end workloads. Cybercriminals see it as an opportunity to increase their attacks. With heightened cyber threats, and distracted staff, this can result in an increase in ransomware incidents, phishing attacks, and scams targeting employees.
Phishing emails are particularly convincing during this time, leveraging festive themes and urgent requests. Common scams include fake charity appeals, holiday e-cards, counterfeit shopping sites advertising too-good-to-be-true discounts. Particularly for organisations, this includes emails impersonating colleagues or managers with “urgent tasks.” These emails often manipulate the recipient’s, deceiving them into clicking malicious links or sharing sensitive data.
AI has further escalated the sophistication of holiday cyberattacks. AI-powered phishing scams, deepfakes, and advanced malware make threats harder to detect and more personalised. For example, AI-generated deepfakes can convincingly impersonate managers through voice or video, tricking employees into transferring funds or sharing confidential data.
The Expanding Attack Surface of Remote Work
During the holiday season, many employees are on the move, working remotely from various locations and connecting to different networks. This is becoming more common in everyday work life, making it crucial for organisations to ensure robust security for all endpoint devices.
With remote and hybrid working now standard in 2024, while it offers flexibility and improved work-life balance, it also greatly increases the attack surface for businesses, introducing new security risks. Remote devices, often the weakest link in cybersecurity, are particularly vulnerable. A survey by Absolute Security revealed that 73% of respondents see these devices as the primary security concern.
Unlike office environments, home and public networks are less secure, leaving remote devices susceptible to cyberattacks. Cybercriminals can easily exploit weak security, putting businesses at greater risk. Without the same level of control over remote devices, safeguarding sensitive data and preventing breaches becomes much harder.
As cybercriminals increasingly target remote workers to infiltrate corporate networks, unsecured Wi-Fi, outdated devices, weak passwords, and inconsistent software updates creates plenty of opportunities for attackers. The lack of continuous oversight makes it even more challenging for IT teams to enforce security policies, respond swiftly to threats, and ultimately protect against data breaches and ransomware attacks.
How To Secure Your Business for the Holidays:
Organisations must adopt a robust cyber resilience posture that strengthens endpoint security and enables organisations to respond and react in a timely manner. Traditional security measures relying on secure office connections are no longer sufficient. According to Absolute Security’s Cyber Resilience Risk Index, Endpoint Protection Platforms and network security applications fail to operate effectively 24 per cent of the time on managed PCs.
With numerous devices used by remote employees, ensuring cyber resilience is vital to minimising damage and downtime. Downtime—when systems, devices, or networks are unavailable—can severely disrupt operations, impact productivity, and result in significant financial losses, particularly during critical business periods like the holiday season.
A comprehensive defence strategy must include reactive measures for immediate response, preventative steps to close vulnerabilities, and recovery protocols to restore functionality quickly. Keeping software updated, monitoring all devices, and ensuring network visibility are key actions to mitigate risk. Protecting the network alone is insufficient if endpoint devices are left vulnerable due to outdated security measures.
Centralised IT teams require real-time visibility into the network and must act decisively against suspicious activity. If abnormal behaviour is detected, compromised devices should be frozen or shut down to contain the incident before it spreads. Additionally, isolating devices used from unfamiliar locations provides an extra layer of protection, enabling fast and efficient incident management.
By adopting a proactive approach to cyber resilience, businesses can reduce downtime and ensure rapid recovery from security issues, protecting sensitive data and maintaining operations. A secure, smooth holiday season depends on strong endpoint security, real-time monitoring, and a focus on keeping systems up to date. After all, the holidays should be filled with cheer—not disrupted by cyber threats threatening to steal your Christmas spirit.
