This past Mother’s Day, loving sons and daughters everywhere headed online to send their moms something special.  But, as with all other big retail holidays, those transactions can be fraught with cyber danger.

Why Holidays Pose Specific Cyber Security Threats

The larger volume of online transactions that occurs around major retail holidays such as Mother’s Day attracts all sorts of cyber criminals. Often fraud attempts outpace the growth in retail sales, putting online retailers and their customers at risk. In fact, retail and wholesale companies ranked at no. 5 in the list of industries targeted by cyber criminals. Threats ranged from phishing to stolen credentials, and the risks continue to grow as more and more sales move online.

Cyber Threats You May See Around Retail Holidays

Businesses with an online presence may experience a surge in several types of cyber attacks around holidays. Having an experienced cyber security team on hand can make it possible to detect and respond to these attacks in real time. Among the threats you can expect to see increasing around holidays are the following:

• Malware. If your point-of-sale hardware is out of date, you’re vulnerable to attacks that can steal your customers’ payment data, making consumers reluctant to do business with your company.
• Fraud. Gift card fraud and return fraud both ramp up around holidays. In addition, account takeover attacks can pose a real danger to online businesses.
• DDoS attacks. A distributed denial-of-service attack doesn’t steal or redirect money coming into your account. Instead, it jams the traffic trying to reach your website so your customers can’t reach you or make purchases. DDoS attacks more than doubled in 2022, with the average attack costing businesses about $30,000 per hour.
• Phishing. Phishing can manifest in all sorts of forms, ranging from fake shopping notifications, scam websites, fake customer satisfaction surveys, social media scams, fake discount codes or coupons, phishing via SMS/text (or smishing), and phony emails (or spear-phishing), many with malicious attachments.
• Ransomware. Cyber criminals turn to ransomware during holiday shopping periods because they know retailers can’t afford to lose their profitability during these important times.

Steps to Protect Your Business Against Cyber Crime

If you wait to upgrade your cyber security until after you’ve been the victim of an attack, you’re too late — the damage to your reputation and bottom line has already been done. Here are some proactive steps you can take to protect your business now:

• Identify your most valuable online assets and increase protection. These assets are likely to be your customers’ personal information. Take steps to wall off this data along with your internal networks so that, if a data breach occurs, any damage is limited.
• Train your employees. If your internal and customer-facing employees know what different cyber attacks look like, they’re more likely to spot them and bring them to your cyber security team’s attention speedily.
• Partner with a cyber security provider. Managed detection and response is key to stopping potential threats before they do real damage. Your own IT team may not have the expertise to provide the protection you need.
• Update your security software. Phishing attacks, which are relatively easy to pull off, change constantly. If your malware detectors and other security software aren’t up to date, they’re likely to miss threats.
• Assess your vulnerabilities. Timely patches will help you cope with software vulnerabilities, but without an experienced security team, you may overlook dangerous gaps in your protection.

With up-to-the-moment expertise and specialized recruiting teams, Mitchell Martin can help you enhance your cyber security teams with the best talent to protect your business. Check us out today to see how we can help you stay safe on Mother’s Day and beyond.