The increased spending during the holiday season makes it a time of increased profits for not just businesses, but also cybercriminals. They know you’re bringing in a lot of sales, and they also know that your team is distracted and overwhelmed by the increased traffic and their vacations. Unfortunately, this means that even with robust cybersecurity protection, your odds of falling prey to a cyberattack spike from around Thanksgiving to the end of the year.
There is good news, though. A solid disaster recovery plan (DRP) gives your business a safety net, helping you stay operational even when unexpected disruptions occur. With the right preparation, your holidays can stay merry instead of becoming a high-stress scramble to recover lost data or restore critical systems.
Is cyber risk really higher for SMBs during the holiday season?
Cyber risk during the holidays increases significantly for many reasons, particularly for SMBs.
First, attackers know that staffing levels tend to dip due to vacations and reduced holiday hours, and those that are left are distracted by increased activity and their own seasonal plans. With fewer eyes monitoring your systems, malicious activity takes longer to spot and respond to, increasing cybercriminals’ odds of success.
Second, employee behavior shifts during the holiday season to more unsafe practices, such as connecting to unsecured public Wi-Fi and using personal devices when working remotely on vacation. Employees are also inundated by holiday emails (sales, flight confirmations, shipping notices, etc.), making it easier for phishing emails to sneak in.
Finally, many SMBs rely on outdated software or skip routine maintenance during the holidays, putting it off until the new year to avoid disruption. Unfortunately, that makes it easier for attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities.
How your business’s disaster recovery plan can prevent a holiday tragedy
No cybersecurity solution is perfect, but a disaster recovery plan provides a structured, reliable strategy for mitigating damage in the event of a successful attack. Your DRP helps your business survive by enabling your team to restore operations after unexpected disruptions, whether they are caused by cybercriminals or by simple equipment failures and adverse weather. Instead of scrambling to replace vital business data or completely rebuilding your workflows, your systems can be back to normal in a matter of hours.
This is great for SMBs during the holidays, when even your best defenses can’t guarantee that all attacks will be stopped.
How a DRP protects your business
A well-designed DRP includes data backups, but it’s much more than that. It’s a detailed roadmap that covers your apps, workflows, and communication tools, as well as all of their configurations. The goal is to both get back what you lost from the disruption and to ensure it works just as it did before the incident.
When your IT team or managed IT services provider (MSP) designs your DRP, they start by identifying your mission-critical systems, such as accounting software, POS systems, customer databases, and communication tools. They will then lay out which components need to be restored first and how, giving your workforce clear instructions on their role in getting your company back to full operations fast.
Defending against serious holiday threats
Ransomware is particularly prevalent and damaging during the holiday season. Not only is the success rate for attacks higher, but SMBs are more willing to pay the ransom so that they don’t miss the holiday business rush.
Regular, automated backups ensure your data stays current, while off-site or cloud-based storage protects your information if local systems are compromised. If your DRP includes robust backups, ransomware attacks lose much of their power. Your business can restore locked data without missing a beat instead of paying costly ransom demands.
Keeping it fresh
A good DRP is not static, so you should test it regularly. Tabletop exercises and simulated failures help verify that your team can execute the plan effectively. When holiday traffic surges, you want to know that your plan actually works, so practice makes perfect.
Need to implement a detailed and customized disaster recovery plan fast before the holiday rush? Contact XBASE for a consultation, and our cybersecurity and disaster recovery specialists will craft a personalized DRP that keeps your business secure no matter what comes this holiday season.