The holiday season brings joy, but it also increases cyber risks for individuals and businesses alike. With a surge in online shopping, travel, and remote work, cybercriminals become more active. Follow these holiday cybersecurity tips to safeguard your digital assets and ensure a safe, secure holiday season.
Holiday Cyber Security Tips
Train Your Employees About Best Cyber Security Practices
During the holidays, many employees receive new tech gadgets. While exciting, this increases the risk of unauthorized devices in the workplace. Ensure your team understands the potential cybersecurity threats and complies with company policies regarding Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD). Educating employees about holiday cybersecurity can minimize shadow IT and strengthen your overall security posture.
As part of these training sessions, emphasize the importance of identifying phishing scams, especially as they increase during the holiday shopping season. Cybercriminals use fake holiday promotions and emails pretending to be legitimate retailers to trick employees into clicking malicious links or downloading malware. Raising awareness about phishing attacks is a fundamental holiday cybersecurity tip that can save your business from data breaches.
Secure Your IoT Devices
Internet of Things (IoT Security) devices can be convenient, but they also pose significant cybersecurity risks. Whether it’s smart coffee machines or connected lights, make sure all devices are properly secured. One key holiday cybersecurity tip is to monitor all IoT assets and manage their vulnerabilities effectively.
Keep Laptops Secure While Traveling
When traveling during the holidays, laptops and mobile devices are particularly vulnerable to theft. Protect your business by ensuring laptops are never left unattended and stored securely. This simple holiday cybersecurity measure can prevent data breaches and ensure the safety of sensitive information.
Additionally, encrypting all sensitive data on laptops and mobile devices is a powerful tool to prevent unauthorized access. If a device is lost or stolen, encryption ensures that any data stored on it cannot be accessed without the correct decryption key. Make sure employees know how to enable encryption on their devices before they travel for the holidays.
Use Reputable Vendors for Asset Inventory
Cybersecurity starts with the supply chain. Ensure you purchase inventory from reputable vendors with stringent security practices. Verifying the integrity of all devices before integrating them into your network is a crucial holiday cybersecurity tip, especially during a season where supply chain risks increase.
Counterfeit devices flood the market during the holidays, posing an additional threat to business networks. These devices may contain malicious hardware or software that compromises your organization’s security. Implementing rigorous verification and procurement processes is key to maintaining a secure supply chain during the holiday season.
Backup Your Data to Stay Safe This Holiday Season
Backing up your data is essential to protecting your information and preserving your digital history. Technology is not always reliable. Systems and devices can crash, and in a worst-case scenario your data may be irretrievable. Ransomware, too, can prevent access to important data and even permanently delete files. Maintaining back-ups in an alternative, secure location means you’re prepared for any scenario, giving you the confidence that you can always access and use your data. With peace of mind, you can enjoy the holidays without worrying about data going missing or becoming unavailable.
Regularly back up important files and data to an external hard drive or a secure cloud storage service. This ensures that you can recover your information in case of a hardware attack or hardware failure.
Stay Vigilant About Juice Jacking
Juice jacking involves using public USB charging ports to steal data or install malware on your device.
Avoid using public charging stations. Otherwise, you might become a victim of juice jacking. This is a method of attack whereby hackers manipulate public charging ports to gain access to the devices that connect to them. The perpetrators can obtain data, inject malicious code, or carry out other nefarious activity. For this reason, it is best to avoid using public charging stations, especially when traveling with company devices. Otherwise, you might find yourself in quite the pickle after returning from your vacation, only to discover a cyber security breach that you could have easily prevented.
USB Cyber Security Awareness
A USB mug warmer sounds like a practical secret Santa gift that can be used on those cold winter days. However, you should also be aware that even this inconspicuous mug warmer could potentially be a cybersecurity threat.
USB attack tools are designed to exploit vulnerabilities in USB devices. Taking advantage of the auto run feature on certain operating systems. Security professionals, penetration testers, and hackers frequently use these tools to demonstrate system weaknesses or gain unauthorized access.
It is important that employees do not use foreign assets, not matter how benign they may seem (USB Cyber Security).
Stay Vigilant for Hidden Cybersecurity Risks
One of the most important holiday cyber security tips that there is no break when it comes to cyber security (Holiday Online Safety Tip Sheets). Even if you are using reputable vendors and implementing precautions left and right, there will always be new vulnerabilities to patch.
From researchers and pen testers to bounty hunters and the vendors themselves, bad actors are always looking for new vulnerabilities and entry points. Therefore, it is crucial for enterprises to keep up to date with these revelations and avoid buying those known-to-be-vulnerable devices (Hidden Cybersecurity Risks).
Follow These Holiday Cyber Security Tips for a Safe Season
By applying these holiday cyber security tips, you can enjoy the festive season without worrying about potential cyber threats. Safeguard your data, train employees, and secure all devices to ensure a smooth and safe holiday period.
Schedule a demo today to see how our solutions can help you stay secure during the holidays and beyond.
The holidays are here,
Bringing joy and cheer.
And our gift to you,
Are some cyber security holiday tips – quite a few!
‘Tis the season for celebration,
Not cyber security frustration.
Follow our advice,
And secure everything, from system to device.
