Holidays are for Hacking: 5 Reasons Cybercriminals Target Your Downtime

While you and your team are out of the office enjoying downtime, this is when hackers get to work. Adversaries intentionally pick times when it’s difficult for your team to respond—such as evenings, holidays, and weekends.

Take, for instance, car dealership SaaS platform CDK Global. They experienced a breach during the Juneteenth holiday, and then suffered another breach as they were starting to restore their systems. As of this writing, the cyber incident is still causing havoc for dealerships that rely on it to process new sales, offer financing, track and order car parts, and manage inventory.

In another high-profile incident, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine was hit with a sustained DDoS attack over the Memorial Day weekend, intermittently knocking its service offline for days. While these examples dominated news headlines, cybercriminals don’t discriminate based on company size.

Why do cyberattacks often begin over weekends or holidays?

5 Reasons Cybercriminals Target Your Downtime

1. Reduced Staffing: Many organizations operate with minimal staff during weekends and holidays. This means fewer IT and security personnel are available to respond quickly to incidents. Attackers know this and seize the opportunity.

2. Delayed Response Times: With key personnel out of the office, the response time to an attack is often slower. This delay allows cybercriminals more time to carry out their nefarious activities.

3. Human Error: During these periods, employees who are working might be less vigilant or more relaxed, increasing the chances of falling for phishing attempts or making mistakes that can be exploited by attackers. It’s human nature to let our guard down when we should be unwinding.

4. System Maintenance: Organizations often schedule updates and changes during off-hours. Attackers may exploit these times, anticipating potential vulnerabilities introduced during these processes. What’s meant to strengthen your systems can sometimes introduce new weak spots.

5. Psychological Impact: Launching an attack during a holiday or weekend disrupts personal time and creates a sense of urgency and chaos. This psychological pressure can lead to rushed decisions and errors, giving cybercriminals the upper hand.

The Threats Just Keep Coming

These combined factors create an environment that cybercriminals can exploit to maximize the effectiveness of their attacks. Staying ahead of threats requires a cohesive solution, 24×7 proactive human eyes on glass, and a singular focus: reducing the amount of time an adversary has in your environment.

Human and AI Synergy in Modern Security

While cutting-edge augmented intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming increasingly adept defending against cyber threats, the human factor remains indispensable.?

In our June TECH Talk, Shahin Pirooz and Kirstin Burke discussed:?

• The essential role of human expertise in the realm of augmented intelligence (AI)?
• Examples of improved security outcomes by combining human expertise with AI?

• The challenges of integrating human expertise with AI and how to overcome them

Stay Ahead of Threats with DataEndure

DataEndure is here to help you strengthen your cybersecurity posture and ensure your data is protected against evolving threats. We've has been around for four decades, and security has been foundational to who we are since day one.

On average, we eradicate bad actors in 6 minutes, before they have a chance to take your business down. Our fully-managed security solutions are designed to deliver multi-layered protection and continuous incident response, even when your team is off the clock.

We can work with you to strengthen your security posture in manageable, incremental steps. Schedule a call today and move forward with resilience.

Thank you for reading our newsletter! We hope to see you at our next TECH Talk!