Closing for the Holidays? Don’t Leave Your Network Wide Open

The Week Nobody’s Watching

Every December it’s the same story. The office empties out between Christmas and New Year’s, the phones go quiet, and everyone finally gets a breather. Attackers love that week. Fewer people are reading email, nobody’s checking alerts, and the one person who’d notice something weird is on a cruise out of Port Everglades.

Ransomware crews have been timing attacks around holidays and long weekends for years. It isn’t personal. A break-in that goes unnoticed for five days is just worth a lot more to them than one you catch in an hour.

It’s October, so you have time to do this right instead of scrambling on December 22nd. Here’s the checklist I’d run.

Before Anyone Leaves

Get updates done early

Don’t schedule a big round of Windows or firewall updates for the day before you close. If something breaks, nobody’s around to fix it. Push updates the week before, make sure every machine came back healthy, and then freeze changes until January.

Test a restore, not just a backup

It’s nice when your backup software says “Success.” Actually pulling a file back out is better. Pick a few real files, restore them somewhere, and open them. If that works, you’ll sleep better over the break. If it doesn’t, at least you found out in December and not in the middle of a crisis.

Decide what stays on and what goes off

Shut down the workstations nobody will use for a week. A computer that’s off can’t get phished, can’t be remote-controlled and can’t get encrypted. Servers, firewalls and anything that runs your backups stay on, ideally plugged into a battery backup. South Florida power doesn’t take holidays either.

Clean up seasonal and temporary accounts

Brought on extra help for the busy season? Had a temp who wrapped up in November? Disable those logins before the break. Old accounts with nobody watching them are the easiest way in.

Watch What Your Out-of-Office Says

This is the one most people miss. Your out-of-office reply goes to anyone who emails you, scammers included. A reply like “I’m out of the country until January 5th with limited access to email. For urgent payments contact Lisa in accounting at…” is a gift to them. It says the boss can’t be reached, names the person who handles the money, and tells them how to reach her.

That’s exactly the setup for a fake “urgent wire from the owner” email to Lisa on December 28th.

Keep it boring:

• Say you’re out and when you’ll be back. Leave out where you are.
• Point people to a general address like info@ or office@, not a named person with their direct line.
• If your email system supports it, use a separate, shorter reply for outside senders. Microsoft 365 and Gmail both can.

Set a Holiday Money Rule

Tell everyone who touches payments that there are no new vendors, no bank detail changes and no “urgent” wires during the break unless they confirm by phone, using a number they already had. Put it in writing. Send the email now, so if a scammer pretends to be you over the holidays, your team has your real instructions to point to.

Same goes for gift cards. If “the owner” texts asking for Apple gift cards for client presents, that’s not the owner. It never is.

Someone Needs to Be On Call

You don’t need a full help desk. You need one person who:

• Gets the alerts, like backup failures, security warnings and those “new sign-in from another country” emails.
• Knows who to call if something looks wrong.
• Has the important phone numbers written down somewhere other than an email account that might be compromised.

Make that list this month: your internet provider, your bank’s fraud line, your cyber insurance claim number, and whoever manages your IT. If you have cyber insurance, check whether the carrier wants a call before you hire any outside help. Plenty of policies require that, and skipping the step can cost you coverage.

Also check that your alerts actually go somewhere. I’ve seen backup failure emails going to an inbox nobody had opened since 2023. If nobody reads an alert, you might as well not have it.

Physical Stuff Counts Too

• Lock the server closet or network cabinet. Cleaning crews and building maintenance still come in.
• Take laptops home or lock them up. An empty office with laptops sitting on desks is a tempting window to smash.
• If you turn the AC way up to save money, think about the closet with the network gear in it. A week in a 90-degree closet is a good way to come back to a dead switch.

When You Come Back

Don’t just flip everything on and dive into email. Spend fifteen minutes on a quick check first:

• Did backups run every night while you were gone?
• Any strange sign-in alerts or new inbox rules?
• Did any machines miss updates because they were off? Let them catch up before people start working.
• Remind the team about scam emails. January is full of fake “year-end tax document” and “W-2 request” phishing.

Start Now, Not December 22nd

None of this is hard. It just tends to get skipped because everyone’s slammed right before the holidays. Put it on the calendar for early December and put a name next to every item, and you’ll actually get to enjoy the time off.

If you want help walking your team through any of this, reach out through yourtech.solutions.