Christmas is supposed to bring a slower pace. Fewer meetings, fewer emails, and a bit of breathing room before the year wraps up. For many small businesses, it is one of the few times things genuinely quieten down.
That slower rhythm is exactly what makes the holiday period appealing to cybercriminals. When people are on leave, routines are less consistent, and inboxes are checked less often, problems naturally take longer to spot. Once something slips through, it can also take longer than usual to untangle.
Attackers understand this pattern well, and they plan their timing around it.
Christmas isn’t slower for attackers
It’s busier. For cybercriminals, the end of the year creates the perfect conditions for trouble:
- Key people are away or harder to reach
- Alerts don’t get checked as often
- Changes to systems and access are postponed
- Staff are tired, distracted, and rushing to finish things up
It’s not that businesses suddenly become careless. It’s that normal safeguards rely on people being present, alert, and available. Over Christmas, that safety net gets thinner.
Attackers know this and time their moves accordingly.
The scams that spike over the holidays
Some attacks are especially common in December because they blend in so well.
Invoice and payment redirection scams increase as suppliers send legitimate end-of-year bills. One small change to a bank detail can be easy to miss when approvals are rushed.
Gift card and reimbursement scams target finance and admin staff with messages that feel plausible, urgent, and personal. “Can you grab this quickly before close of business?”
Phishing emails pretending to be couriers, travel providers, or end-of-year services flood inboxes at exactly the time people expect them.
And account takeovers are often timed just before a public holiday, giving attackers days or weeks of access before anyone notices something is wrong.
None of these rely on sophisticated hacking. They rely on timing and distraction.
Why small businesses are a favourite target
Small businesses are not targeted because they are careless. They are targeted because they are efficient, and that efficiency often means fewer barriers between a message and an action.
Many small teams rely on trust based communication, quick decisions, and lean approval processes. It is common for one or two people to have access to most systems, and for email to act as the central place where decisions, access, and payments are handled. This keeps work moving, but it also means there are fewer layers for an attacker to get past.
If an attacker gains access to a single account, or successfully convinces one person to act, they often do not need to break through multiple defences. The path from message to outcome can be very short.
That risk increases during the holiday period, when teams are smaller, people are covering unfamiliar roles, and responses take longer than usual.
What you can do before the break
Before you step away for the holidays, it helps to run through a short, focused checklist. These checks do not take long, but they close off many of the gaps attackers look for during quieter periods.
Christmas security checklist for small businesses
- Review admin and high privilege access, and remove any accounts or permissions that are no longer needed. Old access rarely stays harmless and often becomes an easy entry point.
- Confirm multi factor authentication is switched on for key systems such as email, cloud services, and accounting platforms. This alone can stop many attacks, even if passwords are compromised.
- Brief your team with a short reminder to be cautious about urgent requests, payment changes, and unexpected emails. Awareness during the break matters more than long training sessions.
- Set clear approval rules for money, access, or system changes over the holiday period. A second check should always be required, even if it feels inconvenient at the time.
- Check that monitoring and alerts are still active, and confirm who is responsible for reviewing them. An alert that no one sees does not provide protection.
- Make sure backups are running and completing successfully. Do not just assume they are working because they are configured.
If something goes wrong anyway
Even with preparation, things can still happen. The most important rule is not to wait.
Small issues become serious problems when they sit unnoticed over a long break.
Have a clear idea of who to contact if something looks wrong, both internally and externally. Isolate affected accounts or devices quickly and document what you see. That context matters when you’re recovering or investigating later.
You don’t need a thick incident response manual. Even a simple “if this happens, do this” plan is enough.
The simple truth
Cybercriminal activity does not slow down just because the calendar does. In fact, holiday periods often create the conditions they rely on most.
A small amount of preparation before Christmas can mean the difference between enjoying your break and spending January dealing with a preventable mess.
And that’s a gift no small business wants to unwrap.
