Black Friday & Cyber Monday: These 4 Security tips reduce cybercrime risk for businesses

Cupertino, November 17, 2021 – Brick-and-mortar and online retailers around the world are currently launching their Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions

Cupertino, November 17, 2021 – Brick-and-mortar and online retailers around the world are currently launching their Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions  marketing traditions that were originally created by American retailers around Thanksgiving weekend and now activate bargain hunters around the world. Largely advertised discount promotions and internationally increasing e-commerce volumes thereby increase the risk for both individuals and companies to become victims of a cyber attack. The following security tips will help reduce the corporate attack surface and safely survive the peak season of online bargain hunters.

1. Ensure Strong Security Basics

What’s true during the rest of the year is especially true around the e-commerce craze of Black Friday and Cyber Monday: businesses should make sure their regular security measures are active and up-to-date. This starts with strong passwords for employee logins and goes all the way to updating relevant corporate and security systems to ensure the highest level of security everywhere. 

2. Empower People – Avoid Phishing

It is not uncommon for successful cyberattacks to be the result of human error. It is, therefore, important to sensitize employees to possible attacks. Phishing activities, in particular, often take advantage of external events to entice employees to click on malicious links or download virus-laden documents as they quickly sift through a wave of increased email traffic – for example, with supposed Black Friday or Cyber Monday offers. That’s why it makes sense to train employees regularly and to raise additional awareness, especially in times of increased cyber risk, so that they can remain alert and react correctly to current external threats.

3. Define and Automate Security Processes

Since cybersecurity can significantly increase through suitable software and accompanying measures (even though there is no such thing as 100 percent protection), companies should define processes to be able to respond quickly in the event of security-relevant events. If you have to ask yourself what to do or who to inform in a crisis situation, you lose important time and run the risk of making the situation even worse by making further mistakes. The more clearly the processes are defined in advance and, ideally, automated, the more effectively damage can be contained.

4. Prepare for an Increased Security Workload

Companies that launch their own marketing campaigns on Black Friday and Cyber Monday in particular should be well prepared for this time: More sales and more e-commerce also mean more traffic, more access – and thus an increased risk of attack, such as a malware or denial-of-service attack. It is therefore important to keep a particularly close eye on traffic, the systems involved and security-relevant events during the campaigns. It is also advisable to increase employee capacities for this security workload in order to enable the smoothest possible, and thus most rewarding, bargain deals for their customers.

“Internationally increased marketing and e-commerce volume, such as for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, always increases the attack risk of cybercrime,” summarizes Jens Bothe, security expert at OTRS Group. “Hacking, phishing, credit card fraud, denial-of-service attacks – criminal online activities find their target more easily. Companies that remain vigilant now and consider the aforementioned security tips can embark on the seasonal bargain hunt with increased confidence.”

 

About OTRS Group

OTRS Group is the manufacturer and the world’s largest provider of the service management suite OTRS, awarded with the SERVIEW CERTIFIED TOOL seal of approval.
It offers companies industry-independent solutions for structured communication in customer service, IT service management and security management. In addition to the core product OTRS, the security solutions STORM and CONTROL ensure efficient cybersecurity incident management and transparent documentation in accordance with standards such as ISO 27001.

Among its customers are Lufthansa, Airbus, IBM, Porsche, BSI (Federal Office for Security in Information Technology), Max Planck Institute, Toyota and Hapag Lloyd. The company consists of OTRS AG and its five subsidiaries OTRS Inc. (USA), OTRS S.A. de C.V. (Mexico), OTRS Asia Pte. Ltd. (Singapore), OTRS do Brasil Soluções Ltda. (Brazil) and OTRS Magyarország Kft. (Hungary). OTRS AG is listed on the basic board of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. For more information, see www.otrs.com.

 

Press Contact OTRS:
 
Address OTRS AG
Zimmermühlenweg 11
61440 Oberursel
Name Laura Bug
Phone +49 6172 681988-32
Email pr@otrs.com

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