The holiday season has just arrived, it is finally giving the overworked, and over-stressed cybersecurity engineers a chance to consider a break.
But the holidays, unfortunately, would not deter the threat actors from lurking in the cyber world with their malicious intentions. We will be discussing some of the ways that could mute these malicious actors.
One of the methods that work like a magic at times like these is Automation. If one would want to keep the tip of the scales in their favor for these holidays, he must cede the tasks of cybersecurity to the trustworthy good-bots.
Here are some of the cybersecurity groundwork to set, in order to save holiday time for oneself.
Making Sure New Accounts Are on the Good List
The creation of new accounts is probably going to increase during the holiday season for anyone who is not in B2B. New sign-ups are not exactly unusual, whether it is because people want to purchase something from your website or because they simply have more time to spare around the holidays. Additionally, there will be those taking advantage of the New Year's bargains and sales, using up their departmental budget from the previous year while they still can, and registering the warranties on gifted products.
Unfortunately, this also indicates a perfect time for malicious actors to create illicit accounts, in order to evade detection in online traffic. In the medium to large enterprises that experience high volumes around this time, the sheer volume of new account creation prevents manually checking each one.
Thus, many of the malicious bots choose this time of the year to create a large number of illicit accounts. Although, these accounts would most likely not do any harm, at least for a while. But one would not want these accounts to simply exist, sit around and develop since they can further be utilized for a variety of malicious cyber-activities and attacks.
Thus, before setting oneself on holiday mode, one must make sure that the automated account validation services are operating properly. In order to keep the same in check, ensure to run some tests, ensure that the bots are being caught when making new accounts, and double checking the associated logging and reporting functions.
Keeping Inventory Numbers Accurate for Santa
It takes a lot of effort and hard work in order to establish an inventory that would aid in surviving the holiday rush. But, this may as well go down the drain if some mean-spirited competitors or threat actors mess with the systems.
But this is not uncommon for threat actors to execute such attacks on holidays as such. They make this happen by utilizing botnets that are capable of messing with the inventory via stockout, or denial-of-inventory attacks. These attacks include placing fraudulent orders and reserving them only to cancel once the holiday rush is over.
Thus, it is advised to keep a check on the automation and detect any illicit stockout activities. Below are a few more tips before you sign off for the holiday season.
- It is advised to conduct an analysis of seasonal false positives from previous holidays, the week before the business closes for the holidays. Make sure to have a good concept of what those impressions look like if you anticipate being hit with false positives. One must accomplish this task before leaving for the year if he can develop more precise filters that will detect the evil folks but let them sleep in on Boxing Day.
- Since social media click frauds are rampant at this time of the year, one must make sure that their automation covers all the social media profiles, or it may lead to reputational damage before the social media could get a hold of it once the holidays are over.
Cybersecurity would be the last thing to have in the back of the minds of people, and even cybersecurity officials, who are hurrying out of the workplaces at the end of the year.
The solution is automation, for one can set up automated protections once and enjoy greater security permanently, it works as a fantastic stress reliever. Giving opportunity to people, to enjoy their holiday season in the best way.
