The Most Dangerous 6 Weeks of the Year

"The breach that nearly cost a mid-sized manufacturer $2.3 million didn't involve sophisticated malware or a nation-state actor. It started with a procurement manager approving a vendor invoice on December 22nd. The invoice looked legitimate. The vendor was real. The only problem: the bank routing number had been changed by an attacker who'd been watching email traffic for weeks, waiting for the exact moment when distraction would override verification."

"Your processes assume a baseline level of attention from employees. The holiday period disrupts all three simultaneously. Employees aren't thinking about security. They're thinking about travel logistics, gift purchases, family obligations, and closing whatever work needs to close before the calendar flips. Cognitive bandwidth that normally catches suspicious details gets redirected to personal planning. That slightly-off domain name in a shipping notification? It doesn't register when you're also tracking four packages and a flight confirmation."

A near-$2.3 million loss occurred when an attacker altered a vendor bank routing number and a procurement manager approved the invoice on December 22nd. The attacker monitored email traffic for weeks and timed the change during the high-distraction holiday period. Security depends on predictable access patterns, team instincts, and consistent employee attention; all three are disrupted by holiday travel, gift shopping, family obligations, and year-end workload. Legitimate transaction volume and vendor communications spike, causing fraudulent requests to blend into the noise. These conditions make distinguishing genuine behavior from active compromise especially difficult.

Read at Securitymagazine