Jingle Bytes: The CDS Tech-Savvy Guide to Secure Holidays!

As the holiday season unfolds, it's not just about festive decorations and cheerful gatherings – it's also the time for organizations to keep a close eye on cybersecurity. With all the online activities happening during this time, cybercriminals tend to sneak in and take advantage of the holiday buzz. Here are some tips and best practices from the CDS team to keep your business secure and our celebrations worry-free.

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1. Keep Everyone Trained, Aware, and Informed 

This might sound like a cliche, but it's important to reiterate the importance of best practices as everyone goes on holiday. Run a cybersecurity refresher for our team during the holidays. Stress the importance of staying vigilant, especially with the rise in phishing emails, suspicious links, and those crafty social engineering scams that tend to pop up more this season. Remind the team members to report any issues they identify to the IT team as soon as possible (Even during the holiday period)

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2. Advise Everyone to Stay Secure:

As many of your team members will be traveling during the holidays, advise them to stick to conscious security protocols like not leaving office devices where third parties can access them, accessing crucial information from mobile devices, connecting to public Wi-Fi at airports, bus stations, etc, for anything sensitive. Remind your team members about the importance of using secure, password-protected Wi-Fi. 

3. Emphasize Secure Online Transactions:

Various departments and individuals within your organization will make online payments during the holiday season. When it comes to online shopping or any transactions, it's best to stick to secure websites (the ones with 'HTTPS'). Remind everyone to double-check the legitimacy of e-commerce sites and be cautious with those holiday-themed emails.

4. This Might Be The Best Time Data Backup and Recovery Plan:

Be prepared; the Holiday season sometimes comes with surprises. Regularly backing up our critical data and ensuring your recovery processes are in good shape is essential, especially as everyone goes on holiday – that way, we're ready for anything, especially in a cyber incident.

5. Consciousness Approach to Mobile Device Security

Most of your employees will access work information from their mobile phones during holidays. Reminding everyone to secure their devices with passwords or biometric authentication is a good call. And for extra security, considering a mobile device management (MDM) solution might be something we should look into.

6. Incident Response Plan:

Talking about being ready, review your incident response plan. Making sure everyone knows the drill for reporting potential security breaches is critical. It's like having a cybersecurity fire drill – better to be safe than sorry. Most importantly, keep your IT department and IT vendors on red alert during the holiday season just in case team members want to report incidents. Hackers take advantage of everyone being too busy enjoying te holiday season to act without being detected.

7. Discuss Security With Your Vendors:

Lastly, discuss your holiday security worries with your partners and vendors. Checking in on the cybersecurity practices of third-party vendors is a good shape. Make sure they're following the best security best practices.

We hope these tips help your organization prepare for the holidays without cybersecurity worries. Here's to a secure and joyful holiday season! Stay vigilant, stay secure, and most importantly, stay in business!