Key Takeaways:
- Holiday “downtime” is a prime attack window. Attackers deliberately time operations for periods when security teams are thinly staffed, distracted, or relying on code freezes and change moratoriums for safety, turning the quiet season into an operational advantage for adversaries.
- Many organizations were effectively “flying blind”. Leaders went into the holidays trusting dashboards, scans, and compliance checks that did not reflect real attack paths, leaving critical gaps in remote access, third‑party access, and legacy systems untested while activity spiked.
- Real readiness requires adversary-style preparation. Holiday resilience comes from proactively stress‑testing defenses the way an attacker would – before the season – validating monitoring, identity controls, remote access, and incident response under peak-load and reduced-staff conditions.
In the rush to wind down for the holidays, many organizations are unknowingly creating the perfect conditions for attackers to strike. Our Founder and CEO, Adriel Desautels, recently published a timely article in Cyber Defense Magazine that explains why businesses are effectively flying blind during the holiday season and how attackers exploit those gaps. Read the full article to learn why the festive period is one of the most dangerous times for your environment and what real readiness should look like when most teams are distracted or running lean.
Why Holidays Are High-Risk
When calendars fill with code freezes, office closures, and vacation schedules, security operations quietly drift into a more fragile state. The business keeps moving, but the people and processes that keep it safe are often operating at reduced strength.
During the holidays, organizations typically face:
Skeleton security and IT staffing, leading to slower detection and response
Spikes in e‑commerce and customer traffic that strain monitoring and logging
Heavier reliance on remote access and personal devices as staff travel or work from home
Informal exceptions to normal change controls to “just get it done before the break”
The “Flying Blind” Problem
The core issue is not just increased activity; it is the false confidence built on dashboards and checklists that do not reflect how an adversary actually moves. On paper, everything looks green, while in practice, critical attack paths remain untested.
This “flying blind” effect often shows up as:
Overreliance on automated scanning that misses multi-step attack chains
Limited visibility into third-party access, legacy systems, and shadow IT
Alert fatigue that hides meaningful anomalies in a sea of noise
No recent, realistic exercise of incident response with a reduced team
How Attackers Exploit The Season
For adversaries, the holiday calendar is an execution date, not a deterrent. They know exactly when organizations are least prepared to notice and respond. The same conditions that make the season hectic for your business make it ideal for quiet compromise.
Attackers use holiday windows to:
Run loud reconnaissance and lateral movement while monitoring is distracted
Target VPNs, SSO, and remote access that are used more heavily by traveling staff
Abuse forgotten test accounts, over-privileged service roles, and stale integrations
Hide data exfiltration and fraudulent activity inside legitimate traffic surges
Why “Freeze = Safe” Is A Dangerous Assumption
Many companies attempt to reduce risk with a holiday change freeze, assuming that fewer changes mean fewer problems. In reality, a freeze can lock in unknown vulnerabilities and configurations at precisely the time attackers are most active.
Common holiday miscalculations include:
Assuming “no changes” means “no new risk,” while pre-existing gaps remain
Delaying critical patches or fixes until after the season for convenience
Treating annual audits as evidence of resilience under peak real-world stress
Ignoring the impact of reduced staff on detection, triage, and communication
What Real Holiday Readiness Requires
True holiday readiness is not about hoping nothing happens; it is about validating how your environment behaves under stress and how your people respond when resources are thin. The organizations that emerge unscathed treat the season as a live-fire test of their resilience.
A serious holiday security strategy should:
Use adversary-style testing ahead of peak season to uncover real attack paths
Validate that monitoring, logging, and alerting still work under peak load
Harden remote access, identity, and third-party connections before traffic spikes
Run tabletop exercises and simulations that assume key staff are unavailable
Don’t Let The Calendar Set Your Risk
The holiday season will always be attractive to attackers because it combines opportunity, distraction, and pressure in a single window. The question is not whether adversaries will try to exploit it, but whether your defenses have been tested in the same conditions they plan to use.
By shifting from reactive, checkbox thinking to proactive, adversary-focused preparation, your organization can stop flying blind and enter the holidays with confidence that has been earned – not assumed.
FAQ
Why are the holidays such a dangerous time for cybersecurity?
The holidays combine higher activity with lower staffing, which creates ideal conditions for attackers to move quietly – especially through remote access, third-party connections, and legacy systems that often receive less scrutiny. Many organizations also lean on code freezes and assume “no changes” means “low risk,” even though existing gaps remain exposed during peak traffic.
Didn’t our holiday code freeze make us safer?
Code freezes reduce change-related incidents, but they do not fix underlying misconfigurations, vulnerable access paths, or weak monitoring. In practice, a freeze can lock in those weaknesses at the very moment attackers are most active and detection is at its weakest.
What should we do differently before the next holiday season?
Treat the holiday period as an adversary stress test: run realistic, attacker-style assessments ahead of time that focus on remote access, identity, and third-party exposure. Validate that monitoring, alerting, and incident response actually work under peak load and with reduced staff, rather than assuming existing processes will scale.
