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Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Black Friday (last Friday of November) and Cyber Monday (the following Monday) are two of the biggest online shopping days of the year, with both posing a possible risk of cyber-attacks and disruption aimed at consumers.
Threat ID:
CC-1779
Category:
Threat Severity:
Medium
Threat Vector:
Published:
14 November 2017 12:00 AM
Report a cyber attack: call 0300 303 5222 or email [email protected]

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This article no longer conforms to NHS Digital's standards for cyber alerts, and may contain outdated or inaccurate information. Use of this information contained in this page is at your own risk

Summary

Black Friday (last Friday of November) and Cyber Monday (the following Monday) are two of the biggest online shopping days of the year, with both posing a possible risk of cyber-attacks and disruption aimed at consumers.

Threat details

Both events are certain to attract large amounts of customers, which along with the online transactions they perform, will generate significant volumes of traffic. This may mimic a distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack and could have an impact on internet services during this period.

Whilst this may not be an issue for an individual, it is probable that employees will use work IT systems to participate, increasing the risk of attacks aimed at these systems. Users may be more susceptible to retail-based spam or phishing campaigns; with attackers likely to tailor their phishing lures and social engineering campaigns to take advantage of this.

Remediation steps

Type Step
  • Ensure users are made aware of the risks of retail-based phishing or spam campaigns around this period.
  • Ensure users are vigilant of the the websites they are visiting and should always check the addresses of the sites they visit.
  • Ensure AV and firewall services are up-to-date.

Last edited: 17 February 2020 11:27 am