How to Prepare for Cyber Attacks This Holiday Season_
                     How to Prepare for Cyber 
Attacks This Holiday Season?
The holiday season is here. Amidst the festivities, entrepreneurs often fail to remember that the threat of cyber 
attacks doesn’t cease to exist when one looks the other way.
According to experts at Deloitte, it is estimated that globally, during the holiday season, online traffic increases by 
more than 15% compared to the rest of the year. This increase in online activity is due to the online shopping 
activities and promotional activities emanating from customers and brands respectively. At the peak of the holiday 
season, this increase in online activity results in around $218 billion in revenue for businesses globally.
Experts from CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) periodically warn entrepreneurs to 
strengthen the cybersecurity solutions of their respective businesses. The reason is simple. Cybercriminals tend to 
ramp up their illicit activities during the holiday season globally in a bid to gain access to customer-end financial 
data. Brands also hire black hat hacking groups in a bid to disrupt the online transactions of their rivals.
So, what are the long-term steps that an entrepreneur can take now to keep their venture safe during the holiday 
season?
There are several ways to keep a business safe online. Some of them are mentioned in the sections below –
Both the CISA and the FBI encourage business owners to 
invest in real-time continuous threat-hunting solutions 
offered by providers of the 
best cybersecurity consulting services. 
Regular threat Real-time continuous threat hunting solutions have been 
created to offer bespoke preemptive threat hunting that 
hunting includes – 
● Searching for malicious activities
minimises ● Stopping attacks● Reduction of damage to data after a cyber breach 
occurs.
vulnerabilities Often cybercriminals would use malware that is designed to 
remain hidden in plain sight that can carry on stealing huge 
packets of data without being detected. Most of the time, 
these stolen packets of data are encrypted and the 
source(s) of the data are corrupted remotely so that the 
owner of the data has to pay a huge ransom in a bid to get 
their digital property back.
The whole aforementioned ordeal can be avoided when 
an entrepreneur invests in real-time continuous threat-
hunting solutions.
Furthermore, entrepreneurs can also train their in-house 
IT staff and workforce members to keep an eye out for 
the following signs – 
● Unusual network activities
● Unauthorized access permissions
● An exponential increase in the read volume of the 
central database(s)
● Logins or data access requests emanating from 
locations outside the business premises
● Online activities during odd hours.
Keeping an eye out for the above-mentioned signs is a 
simple yet effective form of cyber security awareness 
training that can help entrepreneurs save a lot of time 
and money.
Businesses heavily rely on proprietary software and applications 
for all kinds of business-critical operations. Entrepreneurs need to 
make sure that the proprietary applications their employees and 
Periodic scanning, clients use are periodically – 
● Scanned for vulnerabilities
updating and ● Updated to keep the application(s) free from unauthorised 
backdoor entry points and
patching of onsite ● Patched whenever vulnerabilities are identified.
Businesses that use outdated software are sending out invitations 
software are essential to cybercriminals to launch a massive cyber attack against them! 
To keep such instances at bay, business owners should invest in 
dedicated vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions 
offered by leading cybersecurity consultation agencies.
Vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions fall under the 
category of functional cybersecurity solutions that are 
developed to reveal in real-time all the weak spots in an 
enterprise-level IT infrastructure. Furthermore, by investing in 
custom vulnerability assessment and scanning solutions, 
entrepreneu
Entrepreneurs also need to make sure that their in-house 
cybersecurity personnel are trained to keep tabs on access points. 
At the same time, real-time identification of an individual 
accessing in-house data is also crucial to keep security breaches 
at bay.
 Access and identity For the best results, entrepreneurs can partner up with reputed 
cybersecurity solution providers and let them retrofit the IT 
management solutions infrastructure with a custom IAM (Identity and Access 
Management) solution. 
is a long-term solution The purpose of an IAM solution is to keep real-time tabs on logins 
and grant data access permissions. Furthermore, custom IAM 
solutions offered by reputed cybersecurity firms also allow 
entrepreneurs to manage access requests coming from their 
employees, business partners and customers. On top of this, IAM 
solutions can also simplify access level management for individual 
employees with the help of AI and context-based analytics.
The result is a cybersecurity solution that is ever-evolving thud 
enabling entrepreneurs to have more control over the online 
activities of their venture. 
Conclusion The best preparation is to be aware of basic online security practices. For the 
best results, entrepreneurs should hire 
cybersecurity consultants and let the 
experts train their workforce. For more 
details, the reader is requested to 
consult with veterans of the sector like 
fnCyber.
THANKYOU