Cybercriminals work overtime on holidays and weekends. According to a recent report, ransomware attackers often strike when defenses are weakest—86% of study participants who experienced a ransomware attack were targeted on a weekend or holiday, when staffing is most likely to be reduced. Attached is the report. If you haven’t done so already done so put a plan to in place now to maintain maximum cybersecurity for your County and/or agencies. Below is a list of considerations with links to more information. As always, feel free t contact regarding CORSA loss control services and programs. We wish you a safe and secure holiday season. PREPARE FOR HOLIDAY CYBER ATTACKS: Attackers strike the most during holidays and weekends when companies are vulnerable and understaffed. ⚠️ Attacks are more common during non-business hours, mostly due to less staff available to protect the company. ⚠️ Large, profitable companies tend to be the main targets but small businesses with less protection are also a target. ⚠️The attacks that occur during non-business hours take longer to investigate and resolve, which may slow response and notification. Action Items Protect your organization with these practices: ✅ Review cyber incident response plans, resiliency plans, and communications plans. ✅ Reiterate cybersecurity user awareness and training program tips that include guidance on how to report incidents. ✅ Tune endpoint protection, regularly update, and enable real-time detection for antivirus software on all hosts. ✅ Make (and test restore) an offline backup of your data. ✅ Confirm multi-factor authentication (MFA) is working as intended for all services possible. ✅ Confirm software and operating systems are up to date to download the latest security patches. ✅ Scan for open and unused ports and remove any application not deemed necessary for day-to-day operations. ✅ Add an email banner to emails received from outside your organization to warn employees. More Information 🔒 FBI - Ransomware Awareness for Holidays and Weekends https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/alerts/aa21-243a 🔒 Why do cyber-attacks increase during holidays? - Security Boulevard https://securityboulevard.com/2022/12/why-do-cyber-attacks-increase-during-h... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prepare-now-holiday-weekend-cyberattacks-risk... Frank Hatfield CORSA Assistant Director fhatfield@ccao.org<mailto:fhatfield@ccao.org> 614-560-1474 614-220-0209 Fax www.corsa.org<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.corsa.org/__;!!Op5JcThCjWm-UA!zzz1QnDE...> “ The leader in providing Ohio Counties with exceptional value, service, and protection of assets.” CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message (including any attachments) is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy this message and all attachments.