Enterprise Safety
As summer’s warmth gives way to autumn leaves, cybercriminals may secretly be plotting their next major attack – ensure your organization’s defences are robust and vigilant, regardless of the season.
The holiday season is just around the corner. As the weekend approaches, numerous individuals may be looking forward to disconnecting from their work routines and indulging in some much-needed downtime. However, the identical notion cannot be expected to hold true for all risk actors. If left unchecked, your IT systems may become vulnerable to threats as employees in the company’s safety group dedicate excessive time to personal activities, potentially compromising security protocols. This situation has happened numerous times before.
To ensure seamless cybersecurity management, your team seeks a comprehensive strategy that remains effective around the clock, 365 days a year, even during the holiday season? Establishing a robust framework of skilled professionals, optimized procedures, and cutting-edge expertise is essential for effectively managing and minimizing cyber-threats.
When you had been sleeping
While high-profile cyberattacks continue to dominate the news cycle, a subtle yet significant shift is occurring: the average cost of ransomware attacks is trending downward. A significant decline in payment rates was observed: just 36% of victims chose to settle their debts in the second quarter of 2024, compared to a staggering 80% five years prior. As a result, risk actors continually seek innovative approaches to simplify their ransomware attacks. Executing attacks during public holidays, late at night, or on weekends is the most effective approach.
Ransomware attacks surge by 30% during public holidays and weekends? That a staggering 89% of safety professionals are deeply concerned about this potentiality. While most ransomware attacks have been found to occur between 1am and 5am local time, it is crucial for organizations to be aware of this trend, as cybercriminals deliberately target undermanned and unsuspecting teams during these hours to achieve their objective.
Ransomware attacks have been known to strike with frequency during public holidays, leaving victims scrambling to recover from the devastating impact.
- On the eve of Mother’s Day weekend in May 2021, a ransomware attack perpetrated by the notorious DarkSide group struck. A cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline’s computer systems caused a week-long operational outage, leading to widespread gasoline shortages along the entire East Coast.
- A devastating cyberattack struck the agency over the Memorial Day weekend, prompting a costly response: an $11 million ransom paid out to satisfy the attackers’ demands.
- On a chaotic Fourth of July holiday weekend, the notorious Sodinokibi/REvil ransomware gang launched a surprise attack, ultimately affecting approximately 2,000 businesses and organizations across 17 countries.
However, it’s not just cybercrime that safety leaders need to factor in during the holiday period? While rare, there’s also a possibility of state-sponsored cyber attacks. While some nations where attacks often originate, such as China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran, may not celebrate Christmas or do so at different times than those in the Western world, it is essential to acknowledge this cultural disparity when considering the context of many assaults.
Why it issues
During peak holiday seasons, businesses such as retailers, hospitality companies, and warehouse operators are often overwhelmed with increased demands, making them particularly vulnerable to devastating cyberattacks that can severely impact their bottom line and reputation. Regardless of the circumstances, a group can persist.
The more time elapses before responding to a ransomware threat, the greater the likelihood that an attacker has already begun exfiltrating large amounts of sensitive data, potentially even deploying a ransomware payload? To expedite the transition from initial access to encryption and data exfiltration. Without sufficient training and preparation, rushing to integrate safety group members into the workplace or online can be a recipe for disaster?
Although key group members arrive quickly, they may still be unable to provide much assistance. According to recent surveys, 71% of safety professionals confess that they were under the influence while addressing ransomware attacks over weekends or during holidays? A severe out-of-hours breach may:
- What employee impression affects productivity across varying work intervals?
- Considerably disrupt manufacturing/enterprise operations
- Take all publicly accessible websites offline, effectively shuttering the revenue-generating channels and crippling the business’s ability to sustain itself in its current form.
- Invite regulatory scrutiny and create
As the holiday season approaches, ransomware poses a significant threat to our team’s digital security. Diverse perils that require your attention to neutralize include:
- Phishing and focused knowledge theft
- Enterprise e-mail compromise (BEC)
- Cybersecurity threats to e-commerce – a pressing concern during peak shopping seasons.
Mitigating Christmas season cyber danger
Despite the growing threat of ransomware attacks, a staggering 37% of organizations lack contingency plans to respond effectively during weekends and holiday periods when employees are away. Due to the nature of remote work, potential cyber threats can arise at any moment, compounded by non-traditional office hours that become even more complex when teams span multiple time zones.
Consider implementing additional measures to prevent and respond to potential safety incidents during holiday celebrations.
- Steady, automated risk-based patching to
- As security breaches loom large ahead of the holiday season, organizations must act swiftly to safeguard their digital fortresses. Conducting penetration assessments beforehand is crucial to identify vulnerabilities and patch them before malicious actors capitalize on unsuspecting systems.
- Implementing robust multi-factor authentication (MFA) protocols and enforcing the use of complex, unique passwords, ideally stored within a reputable password manager, to proactively counteract phishing and login-based security breaches.
- To ensure that even the most skilled hackers cannot profit from compromising sensitive data, it is crucial to employ robust information encryption methods that prevent unauthorized access and exploitation of stolen intellectual property.
- Procedures are in place to ensure dual authentication for all financial transactions, necessitating a minimum of two authorized personnel to approve and record each transaction.
- Ensure that all third-party suppliers undergo rigorous audits to meet the same stringent safety standards as our own operations.
- A comprehensive incident response plan should be established to ensure swift and effective mitigation of the impact from a data breach during a vacation period, thereby guaranteeing every stakeholder is cognizant of their designated roles and responsibilities.
- Robust, multi-faceted security suite safeguarding endpoints, email platforms, servers, and cloud infrastructure.
- To ensure employees can identify phishing attempts and understand guidelines for secure interactions,
- When unexpected safety incidents arise, having a reliable system for swift notification and response is crucial?
Cybercriminals are relentless, showing no regard for the schedules or downtime of security teams tasked with protecting their targets. It’s wiser to prepare for the worst-case scenario now rather than taking a risk that could result in a disastrous Christmas break for your team.
