Stay Cyber Safe This Holiday Season: Protect Yourself from Hackers and Phishing Attacks

What Your Enterprise Is Overlooking in December

As December arrives, while your teams look forward to eggnog and PTO, your security adversaries

are counting on complacency. The holiday season isn’t a lull; it’s a cybersecurity perfect storm. With minimal staffing, high distractions, and a surge in online activity, sophisticated attacks find the perfect cover. Ignoring this seasonal shift isn’t festive; it’s a critical lapse in governance.

The Seasonal Strategy of the Adversary

The core issue is predictability. Reduced defenses during the holidays are a known quantity—and adversaries plan accordingly. Here’s what’s rampant and too often deprioritized:

Hyper-Emotional Phishing

Holiday phishing campaigns are timely, urgent, and emotionally charged—far removed from the outdated “Nigerian Prince” trope.

• Fake shipping alerts exploit last-minute gift anxiety and push employees to click malicious links

• Personal and work device crossover increases exposure across environments

Bogus BEC & Year-End Invoice Fraud

Attackers target financial teams during year-end close.

• Urgent wire or invoice requests from compromised executive emails

• Lack of enforced out-of-band verification dramatically increases risk

The Pre-Holiday Ransomware Drop

Ransomware operators deploy strategically—late Fridays or the last business day before a long break.

• Skeleton SOC staffing

• Maximum time-to-containment

• Increased ransom leverage

Adversaries don’t take holidays. They exploit yours.

The Crypto & “VIP” Scam Surge

These scams aren’t limited to consumers.

• Credential harvesting via impersonated public figures

• Malware delivery through malicious QR codes and links

• Social engineering that leverages perceived authority and credibility

The Mandate: Stop Trusting and Start Controlling

Effective leaders don’t hope for the best—they implement controls to ensure security. Seasonal cyber risk demands aggressive adoption of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA). This is not merely an IT initiative; it is a business continuity mandate.

What That Looks Like in Practice

• Phishing-Resistant MFA: SMS-based MFA is no longer defensible. Implementing FIDO2 security keys or certificate-based authentication can eliminate this easy attack vector.

• Segment for Containment: Assume breach. Use microsegmentation to isolate high-value assets such as finance systems and IP repositories. One distracted click should never expose your crown jewels.

• Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP), Always: Access must be continuously verified based on identity, device posture, and context. If an employee is on PTO, their access should reflect that reality—not default convenience.

Final Thought

Holiday risk is simply your year-round vulnerability, accelerated. This season, the focus shouldn’t be on gift exchanges—it should be on ensuring you’re not gifting your network access to a cybercriminal.