Beware of common holiday email scams. As the holidays approach, businesses are busier than ever, and cybercriminals know it. Along with cheer, joy, and giving, the holidays also bring an unfortunate surge in cyber scams. As businesses tackle everything from year-end financial tasks to festive preparations, it’s the perfect time of year for email scammers to launch a variety of phishing attacks designed to steal personal information, login credentials, or cash. By exploiting human emotions, trust, and urgency, these social-engineering attacks target employees at all levels and threaten your organization’s security.
Here’s a look at some of the most common email holiday scams businesses face during the holidays, including ways to spot these seasonal schemes and protect your business and end users.
Gift scams
One of the most prevalent holiday scams involves fraudulent requests for gift card purchases. Cybercriminals impersonate company executives, urgently asking employees to buy gift cards for company use. This tactic preys on an employee’s desire to assist their leadership quickly, while the gifting culture of the season makes these requests seem more real and expected.
Fake invoices and payment requests
Finance departments are often the target of fraudulent invoices or payment requests. Scammers impersonate vendors, partners, or even colleagues, leveraging the year-end rush to try to slip through unnoticed. Compromising accounts and hijacking existing conversations with vendors is a common tactic to trick organizations into making fraudulent wire transfers.
Fake shipping and payment notifications
Emails claiming to be from carriers like FedEx or UPS or payment processors like PayPal are very common, especially during the gift-giving season. These messages contain malicious links or attachments disguised as shipping updates and payment confirmations. Although these attacks have been around for many years, they continue to be successful year after year. With increased online shopping and business deliveries, these types of notifications are expected and trusted.
End-of-year bonuses
Scammers impersonate HR or executives, promising holiday bonuses through fake portals or forms. They lure employees into sharing personal information or login credentials. Sometimes, these scams ask employees to pay a “processing fee.” Bonuses are common, and the promise of extra cash during the holiday season is enough to make many employees fall for the scam.
Fake charity scams
The spirit of giving is often exploited by scammers, especially during the holiday season. Scams include fake charity emails, requests impersonating CEOs that ask employees to donate, and fraudulent requests asking finance teams to process payments. The pressure to support good causes during the holidays makes charity scams more effective during this time of year. Organizations like Charity Navigator can help confirm whether a charity is legitimate.
Holiday party scams
Spoofed emails claiming to be from HR send fake invitations, RSVPs, or updates about company holiday parties. These emails often include malicious links or attachments. Many employees expect to receive these invitations, which may lower their guard and make them more likely to click.
Open enrolment scams
As open enrollment deadlines often coincide with the holiday season, scammers take advantage by sending fake enrollment emails. These messages typically include attachments or links to malicious portals asking for sensitive information. The urgency of deadlines and changes to benefits creates anxiety, making employees more susceptible.
Don’t let seasonal email scams catch your business off guard
Here are some ways to help keep your business and employees secure all season long.
Educate users
Be sure your security awareness training covers phishing, QR code attacks, and a variety of other potential threats. Ensure employees can recognize these attacks, understand their fraudulent nature, and know how to report them.
Ensure proper configuration
Set up email security properly to ensure effective protection and avoid misconfigurations, a common cause of successful cybersecurity attacks. Regularly audit your security setup to ensure alignment with best practices and minimize vulnerabilities. Reduce complexity by choosing solutions that are easy to use and require minimal fine-tuning, enabling your team to focus on broader security priorities. Further enhance protection by leveraging AI-driven capabilities that automatically adapt to evolving threats.
Use AI and other advanced technology
Scammers are always adapting their tactics to try to bypass gateways and spam filters, so it’s critical to have a solution in place that detects and protects against targeted phishing attacks, including those that use social engineering. Supplement your gateways with AI-powered cloud email security technology that doesn’t solely rely on looking for malicious links and attachments.
Enable multifactor authentication (MFA)
Provide an additional layer of security above and beyond username and password and reduce the potential impacts of credential compromise by using MFA to protect access to user accounts.
Automate post-delivery remediation
Ensure your business remains resilient against email scams no matter the season. Leverage post-delivery automated incident response to dramatically reduce the time between detection and response. Identify and remove all copies of malicious or unwanted emails across user inboxes in seconds, eliminate the need for manual email cleanups, free up IT staff, and contain threats before employees even realize they’ve been targeted.
Get an inside look at real email examples of the latest seasonal scams
Watch this informative on-demand webinar, “Scam-proof the holidays: Safeguard your clients this season,” for an inside look at real email examples of the latest scams and see the tools, tips, and techniques to help protect against the seasonal surge of cyberthreats.
This article was originally published at Barracuda Blog.
Photo: mnemosyne / Shutterstock
