’Tis the season for giving—not for giving attackers easy openings. Every day, threat actors hunt for fresh holes in widely used software (Microsoft 365, Chrome, Adobe, QuickBooks, Zoom, your OS, even router firmware). When vendors release a patch, the vulnerability becomes known, and cybercriminals rush to weaponize it against anyone who delays updating.
The holiday season is all about joy, generosity, and celebration. But while your office is hanging decorations and exchanging Secret Santa gifts, cybercriminals may be slipping something far less festive into your business: Shadow IT.
Shadow IT refers to unauthorized software or services that employees download without IT approval.
As year-end projects pile up and holiday mailers fly, your copier/MFP (multifunction printer) can quietly become the Grinch of your network. These devices often store images of everything they scan/print, keep address books (sometimes with saved passwords), and ship with unchanged default admin credentials—a perfect gift for attackers.
With cyberthreats escalating and major breaches costing billions, many organizations are embracing the zero trust approach, a holistic methodology that assumes compromise and requires constant verification across all devices and applications. This guide lists the practical, actionable steps security leaders must take to move beyond initial pilots and effectively implement a comprehensive zero trust architecture that effectively counters modern threats.
Tis the season for traffic spikes, gift guides, and last-minute promos—the worst time for your website to go down. Many businesses back up servers and shared files but forget their website. Most sites live on third-party platforms (WordPress hosts, Amazon, Squarespace, etc.
The holidays are full of repeats—movie marathons, favorite recipes, that same carol on loop. But there’s one thing you should never repeat: your passwords. Reusing a single “good” password across multiple sites is like hanging one key on the office tree and handing out copies to everyone at the party.
The holidays bring twinkling lights, family video calls, and… opportunistic scammers. One creepy tactic? Hijacking your webcam to watch, record, and extort (“sextortion”) victims. Paying a ransom only paints a bigger target on you—and attackers can still demand more later.
These days, work moves fast and the pressure to keep up can be intense. But staying productive doesn’t have to mean doing everything manually. With the right tech tools in place, you can manage your workload more efficiently, automate routine tasks, and keep your day from spiraling out of control.
’Tis the season for office clean-ups and year-end refreshes. As you deck the halls and unbox shiny new gear, don’t let old tech become the Grinch that steals your data. Retired computers, servers, printers, and phones can still hold a sleigh-full of confidential information—saved passwords, browser history, client files, even scanned documents—long after they’ve been powered down.
The holiday season brings a surge of shoppers and increased sales, making it one of the most lucrative times of the year for retailers. At the same time, this spike in activity also draws the attention of hackers looking to exploit busy stores and distracted staff.