After spending two years of headline-grabbing cyberattacks, businesses are now worried about a possible increase in ransomware during the holiday season. 

It is not new that the holiday season brings concerns about cybersecurity. However, this time the concerns have risen for obvious reasons. This year’s holiday season, unlike the last two years and before, requires a lot more cybersecurity. This is because for the last two years the holiday season was not celebrated in its usual way. Most of the people had spent their time off either staying at home or working. Now with the mega vaccination drives and easing of pandemic-induced restrictions, experts believe that this holiday season will be about packed airports and jammed roads. 

In addition, many people keeping their office appliances in their homes while traveling for holidays can increase home security as well as their cybersecurity concerns. And for businesses working with skeleton staff during the holiday season, cyber security concerns are topping the chart. 

Cybereason, a cybersecurity firm, took a survey of 1,206 cybersecurity professionals of different organizations. The participants have experienced ransomware during the holiday or the off days in the last year. Almost 89% of the participants from the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Singapore, France, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Spain, and Germany indicated another cyber intrusion this year during the holiday season. 

Improve Employee Satisfaction

As reported by VMWare Global Incident Response Threat Report, 51% of cyber security professionals have experienced extreme stress and burnout during the past 12 months. More than 65%of cybersecurity workers have even considered leaving their job because of the constant stress during the pandemic.  As a manager or an organizational leader, you should take the responsibility for reducing work stress from your staff and keep them engaged in less burnout-causing tasks. 

By engaging and creating mandatory vacation time and paid time off you can establish some tranquility among cyber security workers. Since many organizations are facing an increase in cybersecurity undertakings, many workers can’t afford a vacation as they believe they have to work for long hours before going on vacation and after coming back to the work. As a manager, you should set a good example of how taking leaves is beneficial for the workers and encourage them to do the same. 

Cybercrime Doesn’t Take Vacation

The backbone of your organization is your Cybersecurity team. The cybersecurity team not only keeps the sensitive company data secure but also keeps the company’s infrastructure balanced. However, this only happens when your cyber security team is up to the mark and in the most energetic form. 

Due to the coronavirus outbreak and the heavy cybersecurity risks, the cybersecurity professionals of organizations are already combating burnout. It is natural because of the extra stress and pressure they have dealt with in the past two years with increased cybersecurity attacks and high negligence from remote workers. 

And with all the reasons said above, it is important for an organization to not stay dependent upon the cybersecurity team amid holidays. It is time to guide the employees working from home and office to take some responsibility in their hands. 

Employees that understand cybersecurity concerns, make an effort to invest in secure internet service for their homes. A secure internet connection like the one from Windstream Communications serves its customers with high-speed internet and a protected network for efficient work from home tasks. 

It is important to remember that cybercrime does not take a vacation. Instead, amid holidays the malicious attackers become more persistent in their approach. Therefore, the employees must use a secure internet connection and keep their devices out of reach of outsiders during the holidays. 

Keep Holidays Secure

Staying away from cybersecurity attacks is everyone’s job. Using a secure internet connection, keeping office laptops far from outsiders, and reporting cybersecurity concerns to professionals are some of the ways to have secure holidays.