Holidays Cyber-attacks: Is Your Business Protected?

The holidays are a time to relax, travel, and forget work stress. For most businesses, the season runs from October/November to January. It is when many businesses see increased sales and traffic, making it the busiest period. With millions of people shopping online, cybercriminals target this time. They exploit customer behaviour changes to attack, aiming to steal data or demand a ransom.Cybercriminals are the real Grinches of the holidays, worse than ever.

Cyber-attacks are at an all-time high during the holidays. Every business could be a victim of a holiday cyber-attack. Therefore, every business must have an effective strategy to address holiday cyberattacks this season.

How To Effectively Deal with Holiday Cyber-Attacks?

Stay Alert for Cyber Threats

There was a 46% increase in phishing attacks during November and December in 2025. Employees get excited and distracted by the holidays. During the season, employee errors increase, and the risk of holiday cyberattacks rises.

Cybercriminals send many phishing attacks, hoping that distracted employees may open malicious emails and click links. The holiday phishing emails can be more convincing and holiday-themed – for example, a malicious holiday sale invoice, charity scams or convincing gift cards from a partner company.

Businesses must ensure everyone, including managers and CEOs, is alert to avoid these holiday cyber-attacks. It is the perfect time to brush up on cybersecurity training and be alert for holiday phishing emails. Training and alerting online behaviour can help prevent malicious malware and ensure the Grinch stays away from your network.

Purchase or Upgrade Cybersecurity Software

Around this time, many businesses began to take advantage of the holiday and plan holiday sale promotions. With holiday marketing, there is another essential that companies must consider, which is cybersecurity software.

When a business brings in more customers, it also attracts more cybercriminals. Companies can avoid the increase in holiday cyber-attacks with adequate cybersecurity software (including firewall software). 

Even if your company currently has the software, it might be time to upgrade and ensure it can detect and remove the increased holiday cyber threats.

High-quality cybersecurity software will help detect, warn, and remove malicious threats. It can assist employees in scanning emails, websites and protect the company networks. There is no such thing as too much cybersecurity.

Identify Possible Flaws

The best cybersecurity will still be unable to protect a business with website errors and poor protection behaviour. Even cybersecurity software has its limits. A website with flaws is like a beautifully decorated Christmas tree without a suitable base: it will come crashing down in no time. As a business, your website and data collection platform should be protected and well-coded. 

It’s the business’s duty to ensure the website has no bugs or flaws. For instance, a flaw that can lead to holiday cyberattacks is broken authentication, where data entered is not automatically encrypted.

During the holiday, traffic increases significantly, and customers trust businesses to protect their data. Hence, before holiday traffic begins, all e-commerce companies must ensure their websites are safe and have no, or at most minimal, flaws.

Backup Data More Often

The primary purpose of cybercrime is to steal or lock data in exchange for profit. The profit could be from the attacked company paying to unlock the data (ransomware) or selling the data on the dark web (data breach). Either way, the company will lose data and cannot continue its business process.

The best way to overcome the stress of lost data is to have a recent backup. Every company should back up its data weekly. However, when cyberattacks are more likely, it’s better to back up even more often. Possibly every other day to be on the safe side.

Companies can even purchase backup software that automatically stores data on an offline platform according to a set schedule. Even if hit by a holiday cyber-attack, your business can recover quickly with the right backup strategy.

Regularly Test Cyber Defence

The best way to know whether cybersecurity is strong and flaws are limited is by testing. Companies must find ways to test their cyber defence. Cybersecurity defence testing is the process of identifying security weaknesses and vulnerabilities in websites, systems, and networks.

Businesses can invest in cyber defence testing resources that run multiple tests regularly and produce detailed reports. It is essential to reduce the risk of holiday cyberattacks before and during the holiday season.

Frequent testing will ensure everything works well and make quick changes if needed. In addition, the testing ensures the business system is safe to collect data and reliable.

Limit Internal Access

 

When the holiday approaches, many employees take leave early, go on vacation, and switch off. For many companies, the work laptop and phone are also their personal devices, which they use on holidays.

While travelling or on holiday, employees and staff may forget their cyber training and connect to unsecure Wi-Fi. When connecting to unsecure Wi-Fi, they might let a malicious virus onto the devices. The virus can then spread to business networks as the device is also connected to the business accounts.

Due to the holiday cyberattack risk, businesses must limit network access. Even if one device is infected, the virus cannot spread throughout the entire business system. Every employee should only have access to the essential files they need, especially during the holiday season.

Purchase Cyber Insurance

During the holiday season, ransomware attacks increase by 70%. There is still a chance of holiday cyber-attacks even with proper cybersecurity and training. Many cyber attacks are becoming innovative and hard to detect, especially when cybercriminals use artificial intelligence. Dealing with any cyber-attack can be expensive and disrupt the business’s future.

The best way to deal with a cyber-attack is to have cyber insurance. Cyber insurance will cover cyber experts’ advice, threat removal, data recovery, informing third parties and financial loss. Cyber insurance can help businesses quickly recover from cyberattacks with minimal financial loss.

It is a policy every business needs, year-round, due to the unpredictable rise in cyberattacks. Insurance is the best contingency plan to deal with and recover from holiday cyber-attacks, and then return to focusing on the holidays.

Holiday cyberattacks could disrupt businesses worldwide, and your company must be prepared with the right strategy to stay cyber-safe during the holiday season.

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To Learn More about cyber insurance and protect your business from holiday cyber attacks, contact Red Asia Insurance.