Ho…Ho…Ho ‘tis the Season To Be Hacked
The Christmas holidays are fast approaching and most businesses, except those in retail, are winding down and preparing for a relaxing end to the year.
However, one group of people are picking up their pace. Cybercriminals across the globe are geared up to attack the skyrocketing online activities that come hand-in-hand with Christmas, as well as any potential lax security by businesses distracted by celebrations and holiday preparations.
What Should I Do? – Be Aware
During the holiday period, specially designed and themed attacks proliferate, utilising traditional Christmas practices and patterns to target unsuspecting victims.
For example, cybercriminals may recreate legitimate websites, making them virtually indistinguishable from the real site, and successfully fooling people. Victims have little to no redress in these situations, and brands suffer significant damage to their reputation.
Phishing email attacks on business are particularly popular with unwanted traffic rising substantially during the Christmas period. As a rule of thumb, avoid clicking on any links in an email and when in doubt, contact the alleged source of the email to check its legitimacy.
Christmas e-cards to businesses can be used as well, with holiday greetings from alleged friends, family and co-workers being used to trick individuals into clicking on links that then download malicious software to steal data stored on your business network.
Business Continuity
Apart from cyber-attacks, this time of year is also renown for natural disasters such as bush fires and floods.
Your critical business data, systems, desktops, servers, and your entire infrastructure must be protected and recoverable. Operational downtime is truly disastrous for any business or organisation.
Think Technology Australia’s business continuity solutions will give you peace of mind over the holiday period and throughout the year.
Update Security and Software
Updating your operating system and other software is often seen as an inconvenience to employees, but as things slow down, the Christmas lull can offer some valuable downtime for businesses to make widespread software and infrastructure updates.
Before closing shop for the Christmas period, businesses should ensure that employees download and install the latest updates to ensure systems are secure for when business resumes as normal.
Think Technology Australia undertakes this process as a normal procedure for our clients throughout Australia and overseas. We also ensure mobile devices used by employees have the latest cybersecurity solutions and patches installed to stop cybercriminals easily accessing the business’ internal networks over the holidays.
Don’t Use Public Wi-Fi for Business
People in holiday spirits can drop their guard accidentally and behave more casually in the online environment.
Checking your business emails using public Wi-Fi over the holidays may seem harmless, but it’s not.
Your personal information and confidential business data can be left vulnerable. If you or your employees will be working remotely over the break, protect your company’s data with a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Be Safe
By staying vigilant, carefully assessing what you see online and updating your business’ software and security, you can keep your employees and your business safe.
This is something we do automatically every day for our clients. As a leading Managed Service Provider Think Technology Australia can manage part, or all of your technology. The flexible, fixed-price IT service can include as few or as many components as you believe your business
