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As Christmas approaches, businesses across the UK start preparing for one of the busiest and most profitable times of the year.
But while the festive season brings joy, increased sales, and holiday celebrations, it also brings a surge in cyberattacks.
Cybercriminals see Christmas as the perfect opportunity to strike when your routine changes, staff levels drop, and digital activity increases. In this guide, we’ll explore why UK businesses are more vulnerable during Christmas, the tactics hackers use, and the essential strategies you can put in place to keep your business secure.
December is consistently one of the most highest-risk months for cybercrime.
With employees taking annual leave, you may be short-staffed. This means:
Alerts are checked less frequently
Suspicious activity may go unnoticed
Response times to incidents are slower due to reduced reporting
Hackers know this and take advantage every year. According to NCC Group, December 2024 saw 574 global ransomware attacks the highest monthly total since they began tracking in 2021. So that’s an increase of 187 attacks, or roughly a 48% increase month-over-year.
Whether you’re a retailer experiencing Christmas sales or a service-based company handling increased client activity, high transaction volumes can:
Strain IT systems
Increase exposure to payment fraud
Create more entry points for cybercriminals
The Christmas rush can cause staff to slip on best practices, this means they are:
More likely to click phishing emails disguised as delivery updates or holiday offers.
Less cautious about password hygiene
More rushed and less observant than usual.
End-of-year workload plus holiday schedules can mean your team are more likley to manually delay updates and patches. Unpatched systems leave you exposed to:
Zero-day attacks
Ransomware
Vulnerability-based intrusions
By outsourcing your patch management to a trusted IT support provider ensures your systems stay secure, even when staff are busy as your IT provider can ensure these essential updates are performed out of business hours keeping your business safe and your team wokring at maximum capacity.
Stay vigilant this Christmas and ensure your business remains secure. Download our free infographic that includes preventative statagies to support your team.
Cybercriminals carefully plan attacks around the festive season for several strategic reasons.
People expect more emails during Christmas meaning fake ones blend in easily.
A few examples you might see are:
“Your parcel is delayed”
“Exclusive Christmas sale”
“Holiday payment invoice”
More traffic means more opportunities for:
Credential gathering
Man-in-the-middle attacks
Malware distribution
Payment scams
Christmas is peak revenue season. Hackers know:
Businesses are more willing to pay ransoms
Downtime is especially costly
E-commerce systems are heavily relied upon
With offices winding down and teams focused on year-end activities, cyber awareness naturally drops.
Here are the critical steps UK businesses should take to remain secure over the festive period:
If internal teams are short-staffed, consider:
Outsourced managed security
Outsourced monitoring services
Implementing Automated threat detection tools
Prioritise:
Firewall updates
Software patches
Anti-virus and endpoint security updates
Cloud system updates
Phishing is the no.1 Christmas threat. It’s more very imporent during this time to deploy:
Advanced spam filtering
DMARC, DKIM, SPF records
Email link scanning tools
We do recommend these security features as they should be a minimum requirement all year round in order to stay protected. If you haven’t yet implemented these security features it may be time to consider improving your cyber security infrastructure if you haven’t already got these services in place.
Educate your teams on:
Identifying festive phishing emails
Safe password practices
Reporting suspicious activity (include how-to)
Avoiding personal shopping on work devices
Ensure you have:
Off-site backups
Encrypted backups
Verified and tested recovery procedures
Before Christmas:
Remove unnecessary admin privileges
Disable unused accounts
Enforce MFA (multi-factor authentication)
Make sure:
Key contacts are reachable over Christmas
Response steps are clearly documented
Everyone knows their responsibilities
Managed IT and cybersecurity providers can maintain:
Monitoring
Patching
Rapid response
Threat intelligence
Even while your team is away.
Book a free IT review with a member of our team today to explore your options.
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The most common Christmas threats include:
Phishing and scam emails
Ransomware attacks
Payment fraud
DDoS attacks on e-commerce sites
Credential theft
SMEs often:
Reduce staffing over the holidays
Lack dedicated cybersecurity teams
Delay updates until January
This makes them an easy target.
They often mimic:
Royal Mail / courier notifications
Online shopping invoices
Digital Christmas cards
Charity donation requests
Festive discounts or promotions
Yes, delaying patches dramatically increases your risk.
If internal resources are stretched, outsource patch management.
Ensure staff are using:
VPNs
MFA
Secure Wi-Fi
Updated devices
Company-approved software
Key steps:
Run a security briefing
Test backups
Patch all systems
Tighten access
Set up 24/7 monitoring
Follow your incident response plan:
Isolate the affected system
Notify your security provider
Document the event
Initiate backups if required
Giles Cleverley founded Syn-Star in 2002 shortly after graduating from Portsmouth university with an honours degree in Business & Economics.
His extensive knowledge and experience in IT strategy and business technology solutions. He is passionate about driving innovation and delivering tailored IT support that helps UK small and medium size businesses thrive. Under his leadership, Syn-Star continues to provide cutting-edge managed IT services designed to meet the evolving needs of modern organisations.
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