Holiday Cybersecurity Challenges: Empowering MSPs with Proactive Solutions

During the holiday season, cyber-attacks tend to spike as attackers look to exploit gaps created by reduced workforce availability and the exponential rise in online consumer activity. Phishing attacks, which account for up to 91% of all cyber threats, saw a 46% increase in December 2023, with attackers exploiting festive themes to trick users into clicking malicious links. 

Global agencies, including the FBI, regularly warn that the holidays see higher rates of cyber-attacks, particularly ransomware, because of reduced monitoring and delayed response times due to off-duty IT personnel. 

For Managed Service Providers (MSPS), particularly those without robust security frameworks, this high-risk period presents significant challenges when it comes to protecting client environments. This is where NSB Cyber steps in. With our dedicated, in-country team of cybersecurity experts, we partner with Australian MSPs to strengthen resilience strategies and streamline incident response, ensuring smooth, uninterrupted operations.

In this article, we explore the challenges of holiday resilience and how a partnership with NSB Cyber can empower your MSP to transform this season from a potential stress point into a showcase of your capabilities, securing your clients’ operations and helping you to scale throughout the holiday period.

Challenge 1: Increased Phishing and Ransomware Threats

The Challenge: During the holiday season cybercriminals intensify attacks like phishing and ransomware, exploiting the high volume of online transactions and a reduced workforce presence.

In a landscape where the human factor is estimated to be responsible for up to 68% of data breaches, it's no surprise that hackers strike during this period. Staffing levels are low, people are more relaxed and cyber vigilance tends to dip. This seasonal vulnerability is ideal for cybercriminals, who often create festive-themed phishing scams and holiday promotions to lure lax individuals into clicking malicious links or sharing sensitive information.

How NSB Cyber Helps: NSB Cyber supports Australian MSPs with real-time threat intelligence and proactive threat-hunting services, identifying emerging holiday-themed scams before they impact MSPs and their clients. Our cyber risk team can be leveraged as a virtual extension of your own team for extended periods, or we can provide an extra boost just over the holiday period. As deep technical specialists in the Cyber Defence landscape, we also serve as a natural escalation point for BAU service delivery. When MSPs encounter potential security incidents, we can triage and classify threats immediately, ensuring quick, expert responses that aim to minimise risk.

Challenge 2: Limited Resources for Rapid Incident Response

The Challenge: Reduced staff during the holidays mean MSPs often struggle to respond swiftly to incidents, meaning minor issues if left unchecked, can quickly escalate into significant breaches. During high-traffic periods like the holiday season, attackers are well aware of these vulnerabilities; global agencies like the FBI and CISA consistently report spikes in ransomware incidents around major holidays, as IT support availability is often stretched thin.

How NSB Cyber Helps: NSB Cyber’s dedicated incident response service provides MSPs with immediate triage and technical support, acting as an extension of your existing team. Our cyber experts have deep technical expertise to quickly classify and address security incidents, minimising disruptions. We prioritise proactive solutions, not blame. By partnering with NSB Cyber, you gain a team focused on safeguarding your clients and mitigating risks without disrupting existing workflows.

Challenge 3: Balancing Security with Client Needs for Uptime

The Challenge: MSPs with clients in the retail and eCommerce space are constantly working to strike a balance between security and high uptime demands. During the holiday period, this balance tends to tip towards prioritising uptime, while critical security scans, updates, and patching are pushed down the to-do list. This opens the door to data breaches, potentially exposing customer data and risking serious financial and reputational damage. 

How NSB Cyber Helps: NSB Cyber provides technology-agnostic solutions that adapt to MSPs' existing tools, ensuring added security without disrupting operations. Our independent penetration testing and vulnerability assessments allow MSPs to fortify client environments while keeping systems fully operational, enabling MSPs to meet both security and uptime demands during this critical holiday period. Our tailored solutions allow us to step in and fill the gaps when and where you need us, keeping you resilient throughout periods of operational intensity. 

Challenge 4:  The Need for Seamless Integration with Existing Systems

The Challenge: MSPs would be in serious trouble without established security tools and processes. However, many of these solutions are often cobbled together over time with a short-term mindset, making it difficult for MSPs to upgrade or integrate enhanced security features without significant restructuring, leading to compatibility issues, limited scalability, and added costs when integrating new solutions. A  recent Cloud Security Report found that over 60% of businesses face challenges when trying to implement new tooling into their existing cyber strategy - not something you want to deal with at peak times! 

How NSB Cyber Helps: NSB Cyber’s flexible, technology-agnostic approach allows us to integrate with your existing tech stack, imbuing resilience without disrupting your workflow. This seamless integration allows you to enhance client security without the costly, time-consuming process of overhauling your current setup. The results? Faster, more effective response to holiday threats.

Challenge 5: Maintaining a Proactive Security Posture

The Challenge: With the increased demands for the holiday season, MSPs often fall back on reactive security measures. MSPs still need proactive strategies to anticipate and prevent potential incidents. A reactive-only approach leaves MSPs and their clients vulnerable to sophisticated attacks, as seen in recent holiday-targeted breaches. Proactive threat modelling and hunting are crucial, yet only 49% of organisations proactively invest in protection before suffering an incident, making them more susceptible to attack.

How NSB Cyber Helps: NSB Cyber specialises in advanced threat modelling and proactive defence strategies, empowering you to adopt a security-first approach. Helping MSPs forecast potential threats and identify vulnerabilities before they are exploited strengthens your resilience and reduces the need for reactive-only measures. Adopting a security-first mindset positions your MSPs to safeguard client environments year-round.

Partnering with NSB Cyber for Proactive Holiday Resilience

By collaborating with NSB Cyber, MSPs can offer their clients comprehensive, proactive, managed cybersecurity solutions. Our team provides enhanced cybersecurity intelligence and robust cyber defence capabilities, elevating managed cyber resilience and ensuring clients are well-protected this holiday season and beyond.

We’ve prepared an MSP Holiday Readiness Checklist: Elevate Your Resilience and Incident Response Capabilities to help you assess your preparedness and ensure your clients’ security is fortified for the holiday season. Access the resource here.