Top Cyber Threats to Watch This Holiday Season—and How to Stay Safe

Cyber Threats to Watch for This Holiday Season—and How to Stay Safe

The holidays are a prime time for retail businesses—and unfortunately, for cybercriminals too. With online and in-store traffic surging, the retail sector faces heightened risks from AI-powered cyber threats. Let’s break down what’s happening and how you can protect your business and customers.

The Top Cyber Threats Targeting Retail

  1. Business Logic Abuse
    Cybercriminals exploit the way your system is meant to function—like abusing promo codes or return policies—to gain an unfair advantage. These attacks, often powered by AI, accounted for nearly 31% of threats this year. Retailers must monitor user behavior and enforce strict validations to prevent costly losses.
  2. DDoS Attacks
    Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks make your website unusable by overwhelming it with fake traffic. Application-layer DDoS attacks have jumped by 61% this year. Investing in AI-driven DDoS protection ensures your site stays live during peak shopping seasons.
  3. Grinch Bots
    These bots snatch popular items before real customers can, reselling them at inflated prices. This not only hurts your sales but also damages customer trust. Advanced bot detection tools are critical to keeping the Grinch out of your inventory.
  4. API Exploits
    APIs help power seamless transactions but are increasingly being targeted by hackers. With over 5,500 API attacks daily, protecting your integrations with access controls, monitoring, and rate limits is essential.

How to Protect Your Retail Business

  • Optimize for Scalability: Ensure your systems handle the holiday rush without performance dips. Use CDNs and waiting room queues to keep operations smooth.
  • Block Bots: Develop a robust bot management strategy to keep bad actors at bay while ensuring genuine customers can shop hassle-free.
  • Secure APIs: Regular audits, anomaly detection, and session-based rate limits are key to stopping API-based threats.
  • Invest in DDoS Defense: Machine learning-based solutions can detect and stop attacks in real time, protecting your site from downtime.
  • Validate User Behavior: Stop business logic abuse by identifying unusual activity patterns and implementing strong input validations.

The holidays are a time for celebration—not for cybercrime. At Britec, we’ve spent over 30 years helping businesses stay secure. From bot protection to DDoS mitigation, we’ll ensure your business thrives during this busy season.

Need consultation to prepare your organization for this holiday season? Let’s talk.