Why Do Cyber Attacks Always Seem to Pick the Worst Possible Moment?
That isn’t a coincidence, and it isn’t just bad luck. Black Friday and the Christmas period are, deliberately, one of the busiest windows of the year for cyber attacks, precisely because they are also the busiest window of the year for the businesses being targeted.
Why Attackers Specifically Target This Period
Staff are busier than usual, processing higher volumes of orders, emails, and payments, which means less time to scrutinise any individual message carefully. Genuine seasonal activity, delivery notifications, payment confirmations, supplier communications, gives attackers a perfect, unremarkable cover story for a phishing email that would otherwise stand out on a quieter week. And any disruption during this period costs a business disproportionately more than the same disruption at a quieter time of year, which attackers are well aware of.
The Kind of Attacks That Spike Specifically Now
Phishing emails disguised as delivery notifications or order confirmations, exploiting the sheer volume of genuine ones landing in inboxes at the same time. Fake invoices or payment requests, timed to blend into a period when genuine supplier payments are also unusually high in volume. Business email compromise attempts targeting finance teams specifically during the period when processing genuine payment requests quickly is under the most pressure.
Why “We’ll Be More Careful” Isn’t Enough on Its Own
Staff already know, in principle, to be cautious with email. The problem in this specific period is not awareness, it’s volume and time pressure working against that awareness. Technical controls that don’t rely on individual vigilance in the moment, email filtering, multi-factor authentication, verification processes for payment changes, matter more during this period precisely because staff attention is at its most stretched.
A Simple Pre-Season Check
Before the busiest weeks hit, it’s worth confirming a few things are properly in place rather than discovering a gap during the period itself: multi-factor authentication switched on everywhere, not just for most accounts. A clear, known process for verifying any request to change payment or bank details, that doesn’t rely on replying to the email making the request. Email filtering and security software genuinely up to date, not just assumed to be.
How AOIT Networks Approaches It
We help partners go into the busiest trading period of the year with a pre-season security check, security fundamentals properly checked and confirmed in advance, rather than hoping nothing goes wrong during the weeks a business can least afford disruption.
If you would like a pre-season security check before your busiest period of the year, we are happy to arrange one.
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