A major benefit of technology is that while humans are taking time off, going on vacation, travelling, or even working on other projects, it continues to work. It’s one of the reasons behind the development of robotics, automation, scheduling and even cybersecurity technologies. Now with AI being brought into the mix, it has the potential to make things even more efficient. Does that mean that companies can shut down for the festive season and leave everything up to the bots?
How you answer that question is a strong indicator about how much faith the company has in its systems and security. This is especially relevant considering that the festive season is a time of year when businesses are most vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Think about it. Staff are taking time off and those who remain in office are generally in holiday mode too. This means that they’re more likely to be browsing, and less likely to be vigilant about security processes. They’ll open a link on a phishing email, just because they’re curious.
Some employees may be working remotely and unwittingly be accessing company systems over insecure networks. In addition, IT support teams are often operating remotely too or with just a junior person on site. If there is an incident, it takes them longer to identify and respond to it.
Unfortunately, threat actors are all too aware of this. Plus, with any businesses serving clients in retail, finance or travel, it’s the time of year when the most transactions are processed and revenues are high. If anyone is looking to make a haul, the festive season is a good time to maximise a single opportunity.
These are all reasons to be hyper vigilant about cybersecurity before shutting down for the festive season and starting to think of how best to roast the Christmas turkey. With ransomware up by 30% on average it’s good time to remind employees and clients of what could go wrong.
One particular trend that is catching people out is impersonation of trusted brands. B2B tech is no exception. Imagine that damage to relationships if your brand is used to trick clients into granting access to their systems. It’s never a bad idea to recap the basics of cybersecurity, highlighting the methods that threat actors use to try to appear to be legitimate. Remind clients of the type of requests that you’ll never send, to check full URLs before clicking on links and to rather be overly cautious.
Threat actors bank on people being less vigilant over the festive season. They play on emotions, use events, brands, and trends, and they’re pretty shameless about it. When companies plan for the unexpected and take steps to augment their security, it gives them a better fighting chance of not becoming another cybersecurity statistic. Reminding clients of this can make the festive season more peaceful for everyone.
Happy holidays!
