Holiday Season: A Busy Time for Cyber-Attacks
- August 31, 2023
- Posted by: admin
- Category: Blog
Since Black Friday came to pass, shoppers are gearing up for the holidays by shopping online more than ever. In fact, a record $11.3 billion dollars were spent online during Cyber Monday sales. However, along with the gifts and festivities, a far more nefarious trend has come alongside the holiday season: an increased number of cyber-attacks against consumers and businesses alike, ranging in type, from ransomware and malware, to phishing attacks. With this in mind, it’s important to understand why the holiday season coincides with an increased risk of cyber-attacks and what you can do to protect your organization and yourself from harm.
One reason that cybercriminal activity upticks during the holiday season is because increased shopping online gives more opportunities to strike. This increase in online shopping puts more customer data into the hands of businesses, making these organizations a more valuable target for attackers to breach. Attackers are aware of the importance holiday shopping can play for a company’s bottom line. The influx of earnings that are brought in at this time leads companies to be far more likely to pay ransom during the holidays to avoid interruption during a critical period. Additionally, companies typically have more money on hand to pay attackers during the holiday season.
Another factor that makes the holiday season an especially vulnerable time is that organizations are often focused on driving sales leading up to Christmas, and cybersecurity initiatives can end up taking a backseat. Furthermore, employees may be rushing to fulfill deadlines before the holiday break, leading to regressing into to poor password habits that may put your organization’s data at risk. Phishing attacks, a massive driver of cyber-attacks, are also more likely to be successful during this time, as inboxes are already being flooded with fliers and promotions. These factors can leave your organization at an increased risk for an attack. In fact, the Global Risks Report released by the World Economic Forum implicated human error as the cause of 95% of cybersecurity breaches.
Lastly, potential attackers know that companies tend to slow down and go on a break during the holidays, meaning that a successful attack can be more damaging as it is likely to go unnoticed for a longer period than during regular working hours.
So, how can your organization brace for the holiday season? Keeping cybersecurity at top of mind for employees is one of the most important things you can do. Amplifying training, raising awareness, and reiterating security policies will help to achieve that.
Utilizing professionals at Identity And Access Solutions to help harden your defenses, add layers of security, and continuously test your defenses will ensure that your organization can stand up to this busy time for cyber criminals, and beyond into the new year, ensuring you have a happy holiday season.
If you want to learn more about our Cyber Security, Identity & Access Management and Customer IAM solutions to help you mitigate risk, see our Red Team Services, IAM Services and Customer IAM Advisory pages.
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Todd is a recognized IAM and Cloud industry expert who brings over 20 years of experience in managing, advising, architecting, and deploying IGA, Authentication and Authorization, and Cloud solutions and services across IDaaS, SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. Todd is a frequent speaker on effective risk and security practices at leading industry events. He is responsible for the oversight of CyberSolve’s business segments and for the development of strategic plans to sustain the company’s rapid growth while providing trusted advice to clients across the security and risk spectrum.
Atul has over 20 years of experience in managing, designing and implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Salesforce integrations. He has acted as a cloud-focused solutions expert in both domestic and international markets. Prior to founding CyberSolve, Atul was a Technical Consulting Director at Salesforce where he demonstrated his strong experience architecting financial services industry solutions. Atul holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology.
Shub possesses over 15 years of experience in the Identity and Access Management (IAM) industry in pre-Sales and technology architecture roles. Shubham has held various positions with SailPoint, RSA, Saviynt, and Okta. He has extensive Identity and Access Management industry technology and sales experience in both domestic and international markets as well strong knowledge of how Identity and Access Management satisfies Audit and IT compliance issues. Shub holds a 
Rajesh has served Multi-National Corporations and large organizations as a full time Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and in equivalent roles. In order to fulfill his duties as a CFO he is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Diploma in Information System Audit (DISA certified by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India), is a Certified SAP Consultant, Certified QuickBooks Professional Advisor, and Zoho Partner with 30+ years of experience in managing Finance, Accounting and ERP Systems for Medium to Large organizations in diverse sectors.
John is an experienced IT executive with extensive business leadership, operations management, project management, technology delivery and consulting skills who spent over two decades with General Electric where he was responsible for all aspects of their Global PIM program, he was also a key member of the security assurance team for the organizations Capital business. John leads the delivery of client services across the business landscape, to include Privileged Access Management, Managed Services, Identity Governance & Administration, Cybersecurity and Cloud Services.
Luis has been facilitating IAM programs for 20+ years. He was the CRO at Clear Skye, which builds identity governance capabilities on the ServiceNow Platform. His prior experience with services companies that deliver real world identity solutions has made him a trusted resource for information security executives that he has the privilege of advising. Luis assists in the management of our global sales organization, driving revenue growth via direct sales, ensuring our customers have the best plan and solution to ensure their IAM investment achieves the lowest TCO while providing the highest ROI.
Amit brings over 15 years of Identity and Access Management (IAM) experience to the organization. He has a proven track record in providing customers with the best of breed Identity and Access Management solutions. He ensures success within all engagements by staying integrated with the customer throughout the engagement whether it is a program, project or managed services and support. Amit acts as a customer champion at all times to ensure the right solution and resources are in place to achieve the right requirements.
James leads the delivery of client services across the Identity, Access, and Authorization landscape. He has delivered projects across a wide range of products including Okta, Ping, ForgeRock, Oracle, Microsoft, Citrix, Imprivata, Radiant Logic, Axiomatics and many others. With the advent of modern cloud services, James has served as the internal cloud architect and administrator for almost 10 years and uses that experience to help users make the best use of it.
As a veteran of the Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) landscape, Tony’s career has spanned from being a hands-on Architect\Engineer on numerous industry-leading IGA solutions to building and managing industry-leading Professional Services delivery teams. Tony brings that vast knowledge to CyberSolve and the teams under his management. In recent years Tony has been instrumental in the migration away from the legacy on-prem Identity Governance & Administration solutions to modern cost-effective cloud products.
Clark is a Channels, Sales and Marketing executive with 40+ years of experience as a direct seller, Executive and Founder. His experience includes services, software and hardware sales to Commercial, Federal, and State/Local/Education entities across US Domestic and International markets. Within the IAM spectrum, Clark spent over 5 years as SailPoint’s Channel Manager, Federal & Healthcare markets. He has developed and managed Partner relationships and strategies globally, and is known for significantly growing the revenue of his partners by building trusted, profitable relationships and business strategies.