Cyber Criminals Don’t Take Holidays

We wish you a safe and happy fourth of July coming up this week, and are also reminding you to remain vigilant because we know cyber threat actors do not take holidays.

In fact, cyber criminals use any holiday to take advantage of understaffed organizations and IT departments in public safety, government, healthcare and more.

Phishing attacks and ransomware are the most commonly carried out attacks during holidays and we’ve seen high profile attacks around the holidays in the past such as the Colonial Pipeline being attacked Mothers Day weekend in 2021, IT firm Kaseya during Independence Day 2021, and the Los Angeles Unified School District during Labor Day weekend 2022.

Here are just a few tips to follow all year, and practice even more during holidays:

• Use the three second rule with emails
• Don’t click links, hover over them and don’t trust unexpected emails and attachments
• Make sure to have mutli-factor authentication turned on
• Have a paper printed copy of your cyber incident response plan with emergency contact numbers for all team members
• Report any suspicious or unusual activity including emails or systems behavior

SecuLore’s SOC team is staffed 24/7/365 and we have a cybersecurity emergency incident response hotline you can contact any time in the event of a cyber attack. We are ready to help your organization in crisis.

We hope you have a safe and happy July 4th holiday!