As much as we all look forward to long holiday weekends, so do cyber criminals. But cyber criminals are not looking forward to the holiday weekend because of their plans to kick-back by the lake- they're looking forward to our guard being down and a prime opportunity to for threat activity. 

Recent history has shown us that holiday weekends are a time most organizations let their guard down and in the last several months, multiple large cyber attacks have occurred over holidays.

Why? Less people working. More opportunity to act.

Cyber criminals are not naive in recognizing that long holiday weekends mean many organizations have a skeleton crew working. Cyber criminals also recognize that holidays mean key leaders may be out of the office. The potential of less people working and business leaders being out, likely means that the ability to respond to an attack can be slower and impacted. Cyber criminals bank on the idea that this will lead to a longer amount of time for an attack to be detected. The longer it takes an organization to detect an attack, the more damage a cyber criminal can leave.

There are no known, predicted attacks for this Labor Day weekend- however earlier this week the FBI and CISA released a security advisory warning organizations that holiday weekends are the prime time for cyber criminals to act. 

We certainly are not telling you not to enjoy your long weekend, but it is important to be alert. Remind employees of best security awareness practices. Be vigilant about the potential of ransomware attacks. And have a response plan in place.